


Listen

by Experi



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Diamond & Pearl & Platinum | Pokemon Diamond Pearl Platinum Versions, Pocket Monsters: Ruby & Sapphire & Emerald | Pokemon Ruby Sapphire Emerald Versions
Genre: M/M, my one pride and joy my one claim to fame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-16 19:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5838409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Experi/pseuds/Experi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riley deals with bouts of narcolepsy and nightmares that have far more of an effect on him than they should. Steven Stone is, understandably, concerned and very determined to fix what Riley denies being a problem.<br/>Spoilers: it is very much a problem.</p>
<p>Technically a crosspost from ffnet but with more edits made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part Dexmedetomidine: An issue worsens

**Author's Note:**

> Hihi!! Okay so, like I said this fic is my pride and joy (because it was technically the first English steelfed fic, and because I for once came up with a decent cool plot). So hopefully I'll save AO3 the trouble of waiting 6 months between updates, but I'm posting this here because like i said, it's my baby.  
> I'll be spacing out updates with regards to "when I have the time to doublecheck them" but otherwise most of this is prewritten and should be transferred over/posted fairly quickly. With that, on we go!

Riley hasn’t been sleeping well. For the past couple of weeks, he’s been having incessant nightmares. They hardly started off as bad, just the occasional immediately-forgotten dream that left a bad taste in his mouth when he awoke, but it steadily progressed, leaving him tired and in poor moods in mornings. It’s come to the point where his pokemon have noticed, Lucario especially. She frets over him endlessly, communicates his aura is off. The aura of the island is off. Black mold is eating at the edges.  
Lucario argues and tells him to go somewhere else, but Riley won’t listen. He can’t leave the island. It’s his job to stay with it, to protect it. If something’s wrong, he shouldn’t run if he’s not at risk of something serious. If he’s an aura guardian and a protector of the island, surely he too would have noticed something, and should regardless be present to address issues his pokemon claim are present.  
Besides, he argues back, nightmares are hardly a risk. Just some sort of blip in normality that likely meant nothing. No more than a coincidence.   
When Lucario worries over him too much, the trainer puts her back in her pokeball, and she’s figured out by now that he doesn’t wish to speak about it. She’ll still stand over him as he sleeps and threatens the shadows that dare try and approach her beloved trainer, though. Riley cannot stop her from doing that.  
Riley’s too busy sleeping.

He stands still, trapped in some large black void. It’s not groundless, there is something beneath his feet that feels reminiscent of wet soil when he steps. He can see nothing except himself, and he is dressed in a suit. One he does not own, one that seems fit for a funeral aside from the bright red tie like the aftermath of a cut throat around his neck.  
Riley takes a second to wonder where the morbid feeling came from. He does not generally think like that.  
Something on his head presses him onward and he steps through the void, turning when he feels he should, until he happens upon a room simply hanging in the darkness. Three walls floating unexpectedly in the distance that approaches at a rate entirely incongruous with how fast he’s walking. Riley steps over the threshold where the final wall should be and a full house blossoms around him. The house is, for the most part, bare. There’s a rug and some chairs in this room, but they all seem plain and unused. Like they were temporarily borrowed for the sake of having something look normal. Sitting in one of the chairs in an ill-fittingly relaxed posture is Steven.  
Hello, Mr. Stone. What are you doing here.  
Riley opens his mouth to speak, and nothing comes out. He feels slightly ill, like he does when there’s a crowd of people around him and he can’t turn off the aura sensing. The only person here is Steven, and try as he might, Riley can sense nothing from Steven. It’s like he’s been cut off, which he can’t tell if he prefers to sensory overload or not. The former Champion raises a hand and makes the quick gesture of a cut throat. “Really is such a shame.”  
Abruptly, Riley realizes that nothing has made noise until Steven opened his mouth. Not even footsteps. “But,” Steven continues after a short pause. He fiddles with one of his rings, otherwise seeming entirely uncaring. “You’ll have to go. Nothing I can do about it, it seems.” He gestures again, this time shooing Riley away.  
Entirely on instinct and in an act of desperation, Riley practically lunges forward, trying to grasp Steven’s hand. Please, help me. Hold onto me. Don’t let me die.  
Riley’s hands close on air, and this time as the void reopens beneath him, there is nothing. No ground, and the walls and ceiling of the house quickly fade to black until the only thing remaining is Steven, staring at him from his chair as Riley plunges downward into void.

\----

Riley does not wake quickly like in movies. He wakes slowly, and in the time somewhere between sleep and when his eyes open something that feels unspeakably old and unspeakably tired touches his closed eyes and whispers an apology in a language Riley does not understand.  
It didn’t mean to do this.  
It did not anticipate these effects.  
It is so very sorry.  
Riley wakes up.  
He gets out of bed, careful not to disturb Lucario and the rilou that have taken residence curled next to him. There’s a red glow from the corner of his vision, and from some part of him still dreaming, he turns quickly, staring. Something large, taller than him and it wants rest too. The red does not glow but something else does, lines of ice blue reflecting off of scarlet ridges-  
Riley shakes his head and realizes he’s simply staring at the LED of his alarm clock.  
The red numbers no longer stir memories of things he has never seen. They just tell the trainer that it is currently 6:48 A.M.. He stares until the number switches to 6:49. Riley doesn’t feel as if he’s slept at all. He’s exhausted, but going back to sleep would put him at risk for once again waking up in a cold sweat with the feelings of fear and panic stuck to him like a cloak. Probably not worth the effort.  
He can never recall the dreams in full, and this time he just gets the image of being stared at without compassion by someone he knows well but cannot remember. Just that’s enough to keep a disconcerted feeling around him. Riley sighs, scrubbing at his eyes, and looks over at the three pokemon curled on his bed. The riolu seem fine, but Lucario is curled around them protectively and her hackles are half-raised, as if something happened a recently that angered her. Riley reaches over, gently petting Lucario. Hopefully her dreams are better. She seems to calm at her trainer’s touch. At least one of their problems is easy to fix, and that makes Riley smile slightly.  
He stands and sets off to the kitchen. May as well start the day.

\---

Lucario complains to him when she wakes later and finds her trainer sitting on a couch, staring blankly at a wall. You’re sick, she argues, and Riley can hear her if he concentrates on reading the aura.  
“I am not.”  
You are. It’s in your sleep. You got infected. You need a break.  
“Hush, that’s nonsense.” Riley yawns widely, jaw cracking behind the palm covering it. “All it is is the occasional nightmare. Nothing’s wrong with me, and if there is-- which I’m not agreeing to-- I’ll get over it. Doesn’t one always get over a sickness?”  
Lucario chuffs in displeasure and glares at him. You know this is something you cannot get over so easily.  
Riley stands and waves his hand dismissively. “You have no faith in me. Besides, I’m having a guest over in. Tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow. It’s rude to cancel something that’s been planned for ages just because some guy can’t get his sleep schedule worked out, right?” He grins toothily at his Pokemon, having difficulty enough in making even a mildly convincing expression. She’s not buying it. Lucario instead just shakes her head and abruptly shuts off her verbal communication with him.  
Ah well.  
Can’t win every fight, now can he.  
Riley doesn't let himself concentrate too hard on his Lucario’s mothering, instead preferring to make himself busy turning the Iron Island cabin into some place that looks remotely presentable instead of a dusty pile of wood that some weird guy has been living in alone. That’s a much easier course of action, and it keeps him busy until late in the night. He doesn’t even notice when he crashes and falls asleep.  
This time he is just falling. Falling and falling and falling and he can find nothing to catch himself on. He thinks he’s screaming.


	2. A body is found

No one answers the door when Steven knocks, which is odd. Usually there’s either a note taped to the small window on the door, or it’s opened after maybe thirty seconds of waiting.  
Steven gives Riley a courtesy 60 seconds before knocking again. He goes through this twice before getting curious. Perhaps the usual note of ‘feel free to come in and use anything needed, I will be back soon’ that Riley leaves blew away or some pokemon got to it? Hm.  
He might as well attempt an experiment and see if the door is locked. Luckily for Steven, it is not, which isn’t unusual in the slightest. Though he’s hardly past the threshold when a riolu launches itself around a corner, barking in a tone that Steven can’t tell if it’s alarm, anger, or panic. He should really get better at reading mammalian pokemon.  
Steven holds his hands up in surrender. “I. It’s okay, really. It’s just me.”  
The riolu stares him down for a few seconds, before turning abruptly and running back into the main room.  
Steven assumes he’s passed some sort of test. But certainly an odd one. He follows after the pokemon, and the first thing he sees when he enters the room is Lucario, standing in front of the couch. Her ears are folded angrily, and she stands in a way where her entire body is pointed to the couch and presumably what’s on it. All that’s visible is an unruly mop of blue hair and a hand thrown over the armrest.  
For a second, Steven think’s Riley’s done something like faint (or, argues the less practical half of his head, die) and he tries to pretend there is absolutely no thrill of panic running through him.  
It only lasts half a second at the most before Lucario looks up at him and barks quietly. She steps out of the way, gesturing helplessly and shaking her head. Steven takes this concession as his cue to step up. He leans in front of the couch, inspecting the man sleeping on it as if he was tossed there and then forgotten about.  
Riley looks like he’s ill, definitely. He’s paler than usual, and obvious bruised shadows lurk underneath his eyes. He’s got an odd expression, too, one that edges just enough into distress and away from neutral that Steven finds himself concerned. Added to that, he’s not wearing his usual jacket and his clothes are fairly messy, unusual for Riley’s tendency to keep a neat appearance.  
The Champion takes his hand away from absently fiddling with his rings to nudge Riley’s shoulder. He does not wake, only curls further into himself and mutters quietly. Steven frowns. No, that’s no good.  
He tries again, shaking Riley more forcefully. Lucario barks at him from the corner, and Steven can’t tell if that means he’s supposed to stop or not. But he’d really rather not get bitten, so he stops and settles for nudging Riley’s shoulder a final time.  
Riley mutters again, and Steven replies with “Time to wake up, Riley.”  
Riley grumbles but, to his credit, cracks an eye open. After a good minute or so.  
“Riley?”  
The aura trainer’s eyes are reddish at the edges, like he’d been crying. Steven cocks his head to the side. “Are you alright?”  
Riley’s first reaction is to reach out, and he gets halfway toward grabbing Steven before he blinks himself further awake and drops his hand. “I...”  
“Riley.”  
Riley ignores Steven, scrubbing at his eyes and sitting up with a halfhearted smile. “Mnh. I’m sorry, I should have opened the door for you, but I didn’t get to sleep until late last night and I just passed out here, it seems.” He laughs lightly, but it sounds strained.  
Steven straightens back up, arms crossed. “You look like you got smacked around by a steelix, Riley, and your pokemon were freaking out when I came in here. Who do you think you’re fooling?”  
Steven’s apparent annoyance seems to get to Riley, and he deflates visibly. Riley pushes his hair out of his face, sighing. “Look, it’s just. I haven’t been sleeping well and you know Lucario. She thinks if someone sneezes they’re going to die, and she probably just got too worried that I wasn’t easy to wake when I did sleep. It’s nothing to worry about, really.”  
Steven is not entirely convinced. “Are you sure? It’s hardly safe to go adventuring around in caves if you’re not feeling well.”  
“I’m fine! Really. It’s just a one-time thing, you know how it is. Besides, it’s a hassle for you to come all the way here from Hoenn, I’d hate to call off the reason you came just because my lucario is worried about me.” Riley abruptly stands off the couch, sidestepping Steven and padding lightly over to the half-walled-off kitchen. He realizes he’s rambling, but doesn’t really stop talking (mostly to himself) until Lucario comes over and nudges his hand. That’s enough of a distractor, and Steven’s still standing in the main room, staring at him with an indecipherable expression.  
Steven sighs, and with a shake of his head, he tells himself to relax. Riley could be right, who knows. Maybe it is nothing to worry about (but the second of fear when he thought something was wrong refuses to leave him entirely).  
Instead, he just allows Riley to make him dinner and they discuss how their lives have been going. It’s easy, nothing to worry about for either of them.  
Riley ensures that he doesn’t fall asleep near Steven tonight. It would be counterintuitive to worry him any further.

\--

The faint buzzing of Riley’s alarm clock wakes Steven up from two rooms over before Riley so much as stirs. Riley hears the device, faintly, but it’s hardly enough to rouse him. It just falls into the same dream he’s in, the only thing he can find in his current isolation. A persistent beeping noise.  
Steven gives Riley the time it takes to get himself dressed and halfway packed for the day before he walks over to see why the damn alarm is still going off. It’s rather irritating, there’s no way anyone could sleep through that.  
Theoretically.  
Riley is officially the worst human being at locking doors, though it’s not surprising considering he’s generally alone on his island. It works out nicely for Steven, who knocks politely before letting himself in.  
And Riley’s still asleep. Of course. Steven shuts off the alarm with undue force, uncertain as to why the scenario puts him in such a foul mood. He inhales deeply. Best not to do anything rash but this is bad and it means something is hurting his friend and he will not stand for this- no. It’s okay. Or, it will be. Steven sits heavily next to Riley, reaching over and shaking his upper arm.  
“Rise and shine, I know you have to get up eventually.”  
Riley rolls away from him and grumbles.  
“Riley, come on. I know you said you didn’t sleep enough, but this is a tad excessive. Riley. Ri. Up.” Steven continues in this vein until Riley interrupts him, a quiet mumble that’s just barely intelligible.  
“‘S dark.”  
Steven pauses, hand still on Riley. “What?”  
“Mnuh.”  
Dark. Weird. Steven gives up and lightly smacks Riley upside the head. “It won’t be dark if you get up, it’s almost 9.” That actually seems to get a reaction, and Steven knows Riley’s awake from the fact that he’s trying to pull his arms up to escape Steven. Steven is having none of this, and promptly flops backwards, laying heavily across Riley’s torso. “I know you’re in there.” Riley mutters incoherently, sounding irritated, and swats vaguely at Steven.  
“I’m not getting up until your eyes are open.”  
Apparently the answer to wake him is just to be as annoying as possible. This is not a challenge for Steven. Riley manages to roll onto his back, which Steven simply adjusts with. Riley does his best to sit up, squirming half away. Steven allows him room to breathe, sitting back up and moving to stand. “Well, since you’ve-”  
Riley reaches over and grabs his wrist. “Wait.”  
He realizes what he’s doing and cuts himself off abruptly, looking down. His fingers slowly release Steven and he drags his slightly shaky hand back to his side. “Sorry. Guess I was still kind of asleep.” He laughs quietly, but this time does not even put effort into sincerity.   
Steven does not know what to do. Instead, he just stares, looking unusually sad, before hesitantly patting Riley’s head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll leave you to it then, eh?” With that, the champion exits and leaves Riley to the process of gathering his wits and good mood about him and setting about getting properly dressed.


	3. Chapter 3

He rejoins Steven in the main room a couple minutes later, looking rather more alert. Moreso when Steven hands him a cup of coffee and gestures at the packs on the table as he does.

“Everything’s set up, more or less. If you’re still good to go?”

Riley would have laughed if his mouth weren’t full of coffee. Instead, he swallows and shakes his head. “Of course I’m going. It’s my job, you can’t officially go alone, and I’d hate to miss out should you find anything.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“There’s no need to be.”

“You had better be right about that.”

But that doesn’t stop Steven from casting the occasional concerned glance at Riley as the other man inspects what Steven’s packed up for their adventure, occasionally making comments or going to fetch something and add it. Riley’s lucario joins Steven eventually, giving him a look of understanding and then moving his hand to her head so that she might get pets. “Nothing’s going to happen,” Steven says, more to himself than the pokemon. Lucario nods anyways.

If nothing else, she will ensure that everything is fine. No one’s getting hurt on her watch.

 

It’s roughly noon before both Riley and Steven declare everything in acceptable state, grab packs and Pokemon, and set out to the cave system. The point of the expedition was mainly to see what was in the lower level tunnels, an area that Riley had only recently fixed the access elevator to, and see how far they went and what was down there. He personally felt more at ease exploring when he had someone with him, and Steven just likes going through new areas to see if there is anything geologically interesting down there. They make a good team.

Getting through the first few floors is no trouble at all, and it’s accomplished in only a couple of hours. Four at the most. The trainers that practice around here have since learned that Riley is rarely a person they want to challenge (quiet around strangers as he may be, the man is an absolute terror to battle), and the grey haired guy who walks with him on occasion is even worse. The pokemon around have learned the same, and many prefer to either act benevolently around their island’s guardian or ignore him entirely. It works out nicely when they’re trying to get somewhere in a hurry, as Steven and Riley end up at the previously defunct elevator with ease.

Steven walks around, inspecting it. “And it’s good to carry our weight?”

“It can carry my metagross, so I figured we should not be a problem. Though there’s not working lights installed down there like there are up here. I added lamps to the bag, so-”

He’s cut off by Steven abruptly turning to Riley with a excited grin and holding up a pokeball. “I’ve got that covered.” He tosses it and a smallish bronzor pops out with a chime.

“A bronzor?”

“Yep! Caught it recently around here. Isn’t it  _ cool _ ? Byron advised it.” Steven pats the Pokemon happily and Riley can’t help but laugh under his breath as Steven carries on about how cool Bronzor is. What a nerd.

“Anyways-- here’s why I caught it in the first place. C’mon.” Steven takes Riley’s hand and pulls him over to the elevator, Bronzor following behind them. Steven kicks the lever to move the elevator, and they descend into the shadows. The gloom hardly has time to get thicker before Steven says “Alright, close your eyes,” and Bronzor sets out a flash of light that leaves red stars in both Steven’s and Riley’s vision. The light lessens in intensity afterwards, but there’s still a glow equivalent to dusk lighting illuminating a large circle around the group. Riley can  _ feel _ how proud of himself and his Pokemon Steven is, it radiates off of his aura in dandelion-coloured waves. “Good job,” he says to them both. Bronzor chimes. Steven’s smile widens.

Thankfully for Riley, Steven lets go of Riley’s hand before he suddenly jumps off the elevator, saving Riley from most likely crashing into the floor being dragged behind him. They haven’t even completely reached the bottom yet and he’s already off. Riley follows after, hardly unexcited himself. It’s a completely new region of Iron Island, one he never had the chance to explore. Time for an adventure.

Riley keeps track of where they are on his Poketch, doing his best to sketch out a rough map as they go. It’ll be easier to keep track and redraw it later, when he’s back at the cabin. Steven, on the other hand, monitors the walls and ground carefully, often commenting on some interesting rock or formation that Riley absolutely must look at.

The thing Steven gets the most excited about are small pink crystals scattered sporadically about the cave walls. They first crop up about an hour into their walking, and Steven is absolutely enthralled.

He calls Riley over as he’s crouched by a rock with about four of the pink growths emerging out of it, none of the crystals any larger than an inch long. They both kneel to inspect it, Bronzor floating like a balloon over their heads. “Look, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It looks like quartz, a little, but it’s a weird shape.” Steven passes the rock over to Riley, who pokes at it. He’s hardly a geologist, but he makes an attempt every so often. The crystals feel odd, and touching them causes a faint sense of tightness in his chest. Strange.

“Hey, is it just me, or does it look a bit like they’re shining?” Riley asks, prodding at the rock.

“Hm? Maybe. Let’s find out.” Steven leans over his shoulder, gesturing from the Bronzor to dim its light.

It does, and the crystals are still visible, little pink dots giving off just enough light to be noticeable.

“ _ Cool _ ,” is Riley’s only scientific contribution to the discovery.

Steven pokes Riley’s cheek, doing his absolute best to keep from jumping in place like an overexcitable puppy. “Can I take some back? Please? I mean, if not I understand you’re supposed to preserve the integrity of the island but  _ Riley it’s for science I have to have it _ .” His aura is overloaded with enthusiasm, to the point where Riley has to put effort to keep it from sticking onto his own and getting him unduly excited as well.    
He can’t help but laugh, though. “Yes, you can keep one.  _ One _ , and I’d better get a full analysis back.” He grins lopsidedly, and Steven promptly hugs him with a loud expression of gratitude and an “Of course!”

At least he’s easy to please, Riley thinks as he makes sure to carefully wrap the rock and place it in Steven’s backpack.

Steven’s mood hardly dampens by the time they have to set up something resembling a camp, and Riley’s accepted that it’s contagious and let the cheer spread.

It’s late, they know that much, but neither care enough to check the time. They’re in a cave. Who cares, it’s dark all the time. They’re just going to eat something, sit around for a bit, and sleep. There’s no need to bother with tents, though Steven sends out his metagross and Riley his lucario for the sake of safety from both wild pokemon and alerts in the event of some disaster. Unlikely, but possible. Bronzor can dim its light, as Riley simply leaves a lamp out on a low setting.

Steven is the first to sleep, excusing himself from conversation with a loud yet accidental yawn and plopping down on his sleeping bag. He’s out in a heartbeat.

Riley does his best to stay awake, as he doesn’t wish a repeat of this morning. Surely just one night’s worth of insomnia cannot be that hard, but he can hardly last another hour before he too is curled up, asleep despite the rocks underneath him jabbing his stomach when he shifts. Despite clinging to the sense of both pokemon and Steven beside him, that feeling of others’ presence only lasts so long.

 

_ He is in the same cave, but this time his is abandoned. It is lit enough to see, but there are no lights visible aside from the glowing aura surrounding the pink crystals in the wall. They bind him in place, but it is not unwelcome restraint. Riley knows he cannot walk toward the exit, and that no one is here. No humans, no pokemon, nothing. As much as he may wander, he will always be stuck. This time, instead of fear it is the sense of overwhelming loneliness that surrounds him and seeps to clench between his ribs. _

 

Lucario manages to wake him, thankfully before anyone else rises. She leans against Riley and he hugs her tightly. The pokemon’s aura is comforting and he’ll take what he can get. By the time Steven gets up, Riley’s scrubbed away any remaining emotion from his dream and set about handing over prepackaged breakfasts. They’re only planning to spend one more day in the cave, may as well get going.

Bronzor lights itself back up as Riley extinguishes their lamp and they set off.

Riley hardly strays too far from Steven this time. He feels dizzy and exhausted, and the yellowish glow of his companion’s aura is enough to concentrate on and keep him on his feet, awake. Lucario stands by him keeping watch.

Steven, of course, notices something is amiss. He joins the ‘keep an eye on Riley’ brigade, though his efforts are somewhat less noticeable. He does his best to ensure the he stays within a few feet of Riley. Just in case. He doesn't know what would happen, Steven just knows that he both feels uneasy and wants to protect the man next to him.

“You know,” he starts hesitantly, unsure where exactly he’s trying to go with this. “You honestly don’t seem in top form.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will be. But, hm. You were mentioning your lucario trying to shoo you off, and I still think vacations are good things and a change of scene might help.”

The first thought change of scene evokes is the image of someplace with more than 12 people in it, the exact opposite of Iron Island. “‘M not going to a city.” That fact Riley is adamant on.

Steven shakes his head. “Do you honestly think I’m going to dump you in someplace like Castiela and laugh? Give me  _ some _ credit. If you still feel like crap and don’t entirely hate me by the time I’m to leave, I’m dragging you back to Mossdeep with me. You hardly ever come out there, anyways, and I feel bad for always crashing at your house.” Steven’s rambling, and he realizes it in time to snap his mouth shut without things getting too awkward. There’s a brief pause before Riley speaks again.

“Mossdeep?”

“Yes, Mossdeep. There’s not many people there, the area’s nice, and it’d be nice to give my guest room some purpose in its existence. If your lucario (and let’s face it, myself as well) want you to learn the definition of a vacation, what’s so bad about it?”

Riley shrugs. “I don’t want to leave the island at risk for another Team Galactic fiasco.”

“Riley, there’s trainers here daily who know the rules of the island probably as well as you do, and there’s been  _ no _ reports of Galactic for month. Accept it. It’ll be fun.”

Riley grumbles, mostly just bitter about his lucario finally winning her argument of getting him to go somewhere else, even if it was indirectly. “Alright, you have a point. I’ll concede.”

Steven grins widely and considers his mission accomplished. He doesn’t stop keeping an eye on Riley, he’s just glad that he might have convinced him into doing something helpful.

Concern for Riley doesn’t stop Steven from keeping a running commentary on the stone formations, though. Not even remotely. They’re heading northward, they can both tell that much, which means at least some of the island’s systems must be subaquatic. How far it goes is an expedition for later. The pink crystals also accumulate the farther along the tunnel they go. It’s not much, but the small stones definitely appear more frequently, and many of them are larger than the previous ones seen. Steven measures.

There are a few side tunnels, common for the style of cave excavation at the time, but many of them are caved in, and both Steven and Riley prefer to stay in the larger main tunnel for now. It doesn’t curve much, just progresses steadily north.

Eventually, about halfway through their day, the tunnel stops. The path is blocked with a massive chasm, about ten feet across and seemingly deep. There are no offshoot passages nearby, and while they likely could cross the chasm on a pokemon, the tunnel has collapsed in a rock slide only a few feet beyond it. It seems they’ll have to go back, at the very least.

But the roadblock itself is something Steven deems interesting enough to inspect, and he trots over to it, peering downwards. Riley follows after, significantly more hesitant. Something around here doesn’t resonate well, and the rock itself gives off an aura that makes him feel vaguely ill.

“Shame we got blocked off, but we can always take a second tunnel until it’s time to go back. How deep do you think it is?”

“Don’t know. You can try and toss something down there?” Riley’s stepped over to the cave wall, leaning his weight against it. It’s easier to do that than walk over and join Steven, especially when taking steps makes his head spin. Falling into a tunnel is not something he’s very keen on.

“Riley-”

“I’m good, just. One second.”

Steven sighs. If he says so. He directs most of his attention back to the cut in the rocks, flicking a pebble of the edge. All he gets in return is silence as the shadows quickly swallow up the rock. “Hm.”

His bronzor is acting upset as well. It stays nearby Steven but refuses to go any nearer to the chasm than a foot above its edge. The light from its Flash hardly penetrates the shadows at all, instead they just seem to swirl around and absorb it.

“Seems pretty deep.”

“Yeah. I’ll. Come back later and try to clear the tunnel out sometime.”

Riley’s voice sounds caught between strained and tired, and when Steven looks over, the man is sitting slumped against the wall, eyes shut and pale. His hands are pressed against his forehead in an attempt to stave off lightheadedness.

“Riley, are you-”

“Fine.” 

Steven moves to stand, to protest  _ no you obviously are  _ **_not_ ** before something drags his attention abruptly back to the shadows. He doesn’t know what, but he gets the distinct sense that something is there. The shadows move like exhales and someone wishes to speak to him.

The champion of Hoenn stares, wide-eyed and frozen in place.


	4. Steven Chats With Hallucinations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [looks at escape ropes] how in the fresh fuck, gameverse pokemon
> 
> Also: I'm writing two fics at once about people named Steven this is weird. toomanystevens.txt  
> tell me how to do line breaks, i've forgotten if i can or how

Nothing reaches up and drags Steven down. In fact, nothing physical happens at all. The shadows simply continue to exist, though whatever part of Steven’s head that is still functional notices that he can’t see his bronzor anymore. Or Riley. The light has faded to where the ground is just barely visible. His hands tighten into fists. He cannot tell why he’s so unspeakably nervous. Something announces its presence in a hesitant touch to his thought process, and Steven can neither move nor explain how he knows something is there.

_ ‘Please leave’ _ , it tells him. ‘ _ Please leave I cannot help you _ ’.

Now there is no light, the cave is gone entirely, and when Steven jerks his head upward he can tell something is standing before him in the darkness. Shadows curl invisibly around him, sinuous claws winding over his legs. There is a faint glow from what rises in front of him, an icy colour that’s hardly visible but not at all similar to the usual hallucinated dots when one is engulfed in cave darkness. The thing standing before him shakes its head (another thing Steven knows but does not know how. He sees nothing. It just  _ is) _ .

_ I am so sorry _ .

Steven reaches a hand up for the thing in the shadows. “It’s okay.” Everything can be fixed and forgiven, right? Despite the fact he doesn’t exactly understand what’s being apologized for here.

He gets the sense of some strong regret that does not belong to him before the feeling of being near someone fades back into nothingness. Steven opens his eyes (when did he close them?) to notice that he’s still where he was, though the light from his bronzor is back to normal and the aforementioned pokemon is nudging his shoulder with a few worried chimes. “It’s alright,” Steven says softly, reaching up to pat the pokemon. It only seems marginally comforted, and still floats back and forth in nervous little loops. Steven gets the feeling that he is forgetting something.

He glances over and curses under his breath when he sees Riley slumped against the cave wall, curled in on himself and quite clearly either asleep or unconscious.

  
\--

_ Riley is hanging over the chasm, trying his best to scramble back onto the rock for a secure hold, but he gets nothing. Steven is there but his Pokemon are not, and Riley’s muted calls for help are answered with nothing. His companion turns and walks away, leaving Riley to drop. This time the journey through the void is not endless, there are only a few minutes of blackness before he hits the ground. _

_ Riley does not hit it gently, and the pain from where he slammed his shoulder in the ground prevents him from trying to look around. It hurts, it feels like he might have dislocated it. Riley grits his teeth and presses on the joint with his other hand. Ow. Son of a bitch.  _

_ As far as he can tell he’s lying in a shallow puddle, and it’s not exactly pleasant to have muddy water try and get in his mouth. He sits up after a fair amount of effort, shakes his head to get rid of spare muddy droplets, and looks around. He is not in a place he’s ever seen before. It’s a large clearing in the middle of a shadowy forest. The ground is just dirt through the entire clearing he’s standing in. Riley looks down at himself. The suit is back, the one that makes him feel as if he’s headed to a funeral. He’s covered in mud splatter, but he appears unharmed. Or at least not bleeding, as the pain from his shoulder reminds him. Riley sighs, and the fact that his exhale made  _ noise _ surprises him. He never makes noise in these. He speaks, just a test run of his throat, and is surprised when there’s an audible mumble. Unusual. He stands, the action slightly more difficult when even moving his right arm send waves of pain down from his shoulder, and looks around. There’s another clear space in the forest surrounding him, one appearing like a path. Riley walks toward it in the faint hopes that it will let him leave. He dislikes this place, calm as it may be. Admittedly, it’s not the worst place to land, he just feels as if he doesn’t belong here. As he approaches the opening, he can tell that there’s people and Pokemon there. Byron and Lucario, at the very least, those he recognizes instantly. The others come into focus as he walks up. Roark, that Steel girl from Olivine who he’s met a few times, Dawn, Lucas. All assorted people he’s met and gotten along with at some point in his life. Some of their Pokemon and some of his mill around, though none of the group seems to notice _

_ him.When he stands just at the entrance to the forest path, he can tell that they’re milling about discussing something, though he cannot tell what. Byron, at least, is yelling about something, and seems the most agitated of the bunch. Riley cannot hear them, though, and that bothers him. He tries to walk over to them, but finds that there’s some sort of barrier that keeps him stuck in the clearing. He presses his palms against it (as much as his shoulder protests, this is an urgent matter), concentrating his aura in his hands and trying to force his way through. It does nothing. Riley’s brows furrow and he drops his hands. “Hey!”  _

_ His shout also gets no attention, but he tries again anyways. There’s a minute of silence where Riley just watches, expression distraught, as his Lucario looks up from the group and finally acknowledges him. She tilts her head at her trainer and barks noiselessly. Dawn tries to pat her, but the Pokemon swats her hand off and turns away, shouldering her way through the group to the indistinct people standing at the fringes. All the others Riley can see, and those who are too in shadow to define seem to give up as well, turning and walking away. _

_ No. No, no, no no nononono. _

_ They can’t leave him here. They can’t. He doesn’t want to stay. No matter how loudly Riley yells and whose attention he tries to get, no one turns back. No one can hear him at all, except himself. Eventually he’s forced to give up, and he slumps against the invisible barrier, breathing ragged. _

_ Why does this have to happen to him. _

_ What did he  _ do _. _

__

\--

Meanwhile, Steven panics. Nothing is waking Riley up. He’s absolutely out, no matter what Steven tries. Riley talks occasionally, muted but distressed murmurs; despite speech proving that Riley is probably not actually unconscious it does nothing to make Steven worry any less.

Nope, to hell with this. They’re leaving. Executive decision. They’ve got escape ropes, Steven and Riley both made sure of that. But sadly for Steven, escape ropes can only take the two of them back to the elevator, the one they used to get down here in the first place. Steven grumbles when he’s greeted with that instead of an actual exit. And Riley still doesn’t seem to be keen on waking up, as much as Steven jostles him around and talks (mostly nonsense or stream of consciousness) to him. What a pain. He drags Riley onto the steel platform and holds him up as he flips the switch to move them up. Thankfully, that hasn’t broken. There’s the little good things, though it hardly makes Steven feel any better. Once they get to the top, he can feel more comfortable calling out his metagross. Steven thanks his bronzor for its assistance in the cave system and sends it back to its pokeball. Metagross’s turn.

“Hold still, okay? I need a favour. Can you carry him? We need to get out of here.” Metagross agrees. With effort and compliance from his pokemon, Steven hoists Riley on top of the metagross. Steven hops off and walks next to Metagross, leading it out. He walks quickly, and what few trainers that bother to say hello to him and otherwise try to start a conversation are met only by terse monosyllables and a wave goodbye. They make much quicker time out of the cave than in, but Riley still hasn’t stirred by the time they return to the cabin.

Riley gets dragged back off the metagross on his doorstep, as the Pokemon is too large to bring inside, and Steven does his best (mostly failing) to carry Riley back inside with proper decorum. He gets propped against a wall.

Steven crouches in front of the prone trainer, staring and twisting a ring anxiously. Riley’s at least stopped mumbling, but he’s unsure if that’s good or bad. He doesn’t look any better, still pale and anxious even in his not-quite-conscious state. Motion directs Steven’s eye to the few pokeballs on Riley’s belt, one of which is twitching. He watches, and a few seconds later it bursts open, Lucario standing in the aftermath of the red light. She brushes nonexistent dust off her armfur and barks at Steven in a professional sounding manner.

It’s not often that he sees domesticated Pokemon force their own way out of their pokeballs, but he also can’t say he’s surprised. Extenuating circumstance and everything. Lucario gestures for him to back away and Steven obliges, taking a few wary steps backwards. Lucario chuffs with obvious irritation at Riley’s prone form. She holds out a paw, and in a blink there’s a swirling blue mass of aura around her hand.

She barks again, firmly this time.

“Hey, wait-!” Steven tries to step forward, but he gets halfway through before the bauble of aura is slung at Riley, catching him in the side and sending the trainer flying a few feet to land in a slump a couple feet away. Lucario crosses her arms with a more muted bark, ears once more pricked in Riley’s direction.

Riley stirs, clutching his arms around himself with a low groan.

Steven breaks out of his surprise and runs over, grabbing Riley’s shirt and hauling him into somewhat of a standing position.

“ _ Riley! _ ”


	5. Chapter 5

Riley’s awake, it was sort of difficult not to be after getting thrown across a room by a pokemon. He groans a low “ _ ooooowwww _ ,” and blearily lays a hand over his side. That’ll be a bruise. He’s currently too out of it to process why he’s being half-held-up by his upper arms, and Steven is too busy caught in an endless list of things he wants to say and can’t figure out where to start. Riley blinks himself into enough cognitive function to get past ‘why do I hurt’ and move into ‘what is pushing my arm upward’. He looks up. Oh. Hello, Steven.

The fact that Riley is  _ not _ alone right now, that he wasn’t left off in some Godforsaken corner of the world, makes him stupidly and sleepily happy, and he’s not thinking too hard as he promptly pulls Steven into a hug.

Steven is still supporting most of Riley’s weight and still stunned. He takes a few seconds, but eventually pats Riley’s head, remembers why they’re here, and then pulls the other male off of him. Riley appears both disappointed and disoriented as Steven holds him at arm’s length, face flushed.

“Do you have  _ any _ idea what just happened? What the hell were you doing? We had to drag you back here,” Steven continues on rambling at Riley, more stressed than actually angry. Riley keeps zoning out throughout Steven’s speech. Concentration is difficult right now, but what he does catch doesn’t really make him any happier. Riley slowly slumps forward, head bowed. 

“‘M sorry.”

“You-. What?”

“I’m sorry.” Riley’s voice is muted, but at least he’s looking Steven in the eye. (And that, in the end, is what makes Steven wilt.) Steven lets go of Riley, dropping his hands and looking off at the ground.

“Yeah. I’m. It’s okay. And I really shouldn’t have gotten mad and you. Sorry.  _ Arceus _ , Riley, you’re scaring me.”

Riley shifts his weight around uncomfortably. “I’m not exactly trying to.”

“I know you’re not. I’m not blaming you. Honestly.”

There’s a pause, during which Riley relaxes. He’s not annoyed or anything similar. Mostly he’s just tired. There’s not a lot of room for extraneous emotions when he feels like he’s still about to keel over. He looks over at Lucario who folds her ears and looks away, self-conscious. “It’s okay,” he tells her quietly. He’s not particularly mad at her for what he presumes is causing the large forming bruise on his side. She trots over and pushes her head against Riley’s hand in apology.

Steven, once again, is the first to break the quiet. “Though I’m still kidnapping you back to Mossdeep.” His tone is an odd combination of miffed and determined. There is no escape, or at least he refuses to allow one. Byron wouldn’t mind at all and he’s the only one who could possibly have a say otherwise in that arrangement.

Luckily for Steven, Riley hardly bothers to protest. He just laughs mutedly at the phrasing and agrees. What he wasn’t expecting is for Steven to clap him on the shoulder and shove him off toward his own room.

“Then get some stuff, I really wasn’t kidding about the hauling you off  _ now  _ thing.”

Riley stumbles off and Lucario takes this as her cue to follow after him, mostly to make sure everything is done to her standards and Riley absolutely does not forget her pokeball. As if he would. 

Steven watches, only turning away when he’s satisfied Riley’s good and he can go sort his own stuff out. Steven sighs, tapping the flat of his fingernail against one of his rings. He just hopes that what he’s doing will actually turn out slightly helpful instead of just watching things continue to become progressively more terrible.

He’ll have to email Cynthia once he gets home.

\--

Many hours later and with the combined efforts of Skarmory and a boat, Steven and Riley get halfway to Hoenn, and end up plopped in an altogether mediocre motel room around midnight. Neither are particularly used to motels, considering Riley hardly ever leaves the island and Steven just sleeps on routes when he’s adventuring on foot because that’s where he’ll happen to be when night falls.

But hey, mostly cheap and entirely not-sketchy lodging for the night, they’re good to go. It’s late by now, and Riley’s sitting cross-legged on the bed he claimed, poking at the mattress. Steven’s on his own, ill-fitting Skarmory somehow managing to plop his head in Steven’s lap. Riley appears more or less awake for once, considering Steven kept having to check to make sure he wasn’t going to pass out in midair.

“Can I sleep here,” Riley pipes up.

“... Yes, that is sort of what the bed is here for. Sleeping. That’s what you  _ do _ on a bed, Ri.”

Riley snorts and chucks a pillow at Steven, who deflects it harmlessly to the ground.

“You know what I meant, jerk.”

“Wow, call me names again and I’ll be so hurt that I’ll just fly off without you. But yes, and I’m waking you up at seven.”

Cue a loud groan from Riley as he flops backwards. Lucario looks up from where she was sleeping at the foot of the bed, somewhat displeased at having been woken up by the motion. “I’m sure you’ll live through the scathing blow that is my insults. Don’t fly off without me.” He ends in a whine, closing his eyes.

“I’ll put some thought into remembering to carry you along.”

Riley’s next reply is honestly meant to be intelligible, but ends up being a sleepy slur of syllables, and Steven gives up trying to decode it. He reaches over and throws Riley’s previously weaponized pillow back at him. It bounces off his face. “At least sleep properly, jeez.”

His threat goes unheard and unheeded, to no one’s surprise at all. After a few minutes, Riley’s breathing evens and he’s out.

Steven stays up, petting Skarmory and keeping an eye on Riley until he dozes off himself, still curled awkwardly over the bird.

\--

_ Riley dreams but it is not a nightmare. This time he is simply sitting in a distinctly old-fashioned yet very well furnished room. He is on one armchair, and there is a different chair directly opposing him that he is... also sitting in. _

_ Or some other version of himself. He knows the difference, the Riley that is not Riley seems to glow slightly around their eyes, though that does not stop the shadows from dancing around their feet. They sit in a manner that is both professional and unworried; leaned back and gazing calmly at Riley. _

_ Riley cocks his head at his doppelgänger, and gets only an apologetic smile in return. _

_ “You found me. Though I’m afraid I can’t help you out much,” the Not-Riley says. _

_ “Then why do this?” Riley asks. _

_ “I don’t know. Call it a whim. A slight form of apology.” The other one picks idly at the knee of their pants. “I apologize if borrowing your face unnerves you, but it is one of the only human faces I have a full grasp on copying.” _

_ “I. Suppose it’s okay.” Though it did make Riley slightly uncomfortable, it could be worse. “Then what are you exactly?” _

_ The other Riley laughs hollowly. “I forget what I am called in human tongues, I’m afraid. Though I do know you will make choices for the best.” They stand up, dusting nonexistent dust off their palms before they step over to Riley and place a hand over his forehead in what could be considered a comforting gesture if it weren’t performed by a slightly-off copy. The shadows follow them, reluctant to let darkened claws off of their legs. “You’ll be fine, as will I, and I am glad for that.” Their face falls, expression becoming distinctly regretful. “But what happens between then and now, I no longer have any control over. I have faith in your ability to emerge, however.” _

_ Riley simply nods, and then he and the other one go back to sitting in a peaceful but somewhat hesitant silence. _

_ \-- _

The alarm clock in the table beeping persistently and with a particularly irritating tone. Steven swats blearily at it, missing it beautifully at all attempts. When he sits up, it’s with a particularly discomforted mutter. Sleeping practically folded over oneself on top of a giant metal bird is never a good position to wake up from. The alarm finally gets shut off, and Steven looks over to Riley, who’s curled up, face smooshed against Lucario’s side and arm thrown over his eyes to block out sunlight.

Steven mutters and tosses his pillow at him, to which Riley responds with a muffled “ _ Mnuh. _ ” 

That, at least, lets Steven feel somewhat more relieved. We are functional (barely) and present. He stands up, nudging Skarmory’s head out of the way and stretching before he walks over to Riley and removes his arm from his face.

“Rise and shine, the world says hello.”

Riley glares sleepily. “The world can give me five more minutes.” He does his best to roll over and resume hiding his face in Lucario’s fur, which fails beautifully when Steven just shoves him back over. Damn it, Steven. For the first time in months, Riley actually feels as if he’s slept once he’s woken up, and it’s such a nice feeling. But giving up doesn’t seem to be on Steven’s itinerary for the day, so Riley puts forth the effort needed to sit up. He’s rewarded by a bright grin from Steven, and he briefly wonders how anyone can be so chipper right after they’ve woken up. Possibly black magic?

Steven continues to be chipper in Riley’s general direction, but at least has the grace to give him a break while they return pokemon to pokeballs and get somewhat properly dressed.

Steven taps Riley’s forehead and Riley mock-attempts to bite his finger.

“Funnily enough, it doesn’t strike me that you’re a fan of mornings.”

“Sleep schedules are hard. And nobody understands, Steven.”  

Steven laughs. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll get you caffeine before we go. And we’ll be in Mossdeep by. Eeeeh, four.”

A pause, as Riley considers. “Acceptable.”

Steven pats Riley’s shoulder and they’re off in twenty minutes.


	6. Part Atipamezole: Side effects

Practically the entire concept of Hoenn is a novelty to Riley— tropical areas? Islands further than a few kilometers away from the mainland that aren’t made of rocky outcrops?  _ Warm water in the middle of March _ ? Absolutely ridiculous.

They landed for an extended amount of time in Lillycove. Steven being Steven, he manages to be in the town for a grand total of twenty minutes before he shouts a “hello!” at someone wandering about the streets. Steven waves exuberantly and glances over at Riley. “I found a friend.”

“I noticed,” Riley says, complete with a laugh.

The person Steven was waving to trots over, turning out to be a youngish woman with a masquerain flitting about around her head. “Hi, it’s been ages. Who’s this? Where you from, hat guy?”

Riley introduces himself and the woman informs him that her name is Rana. From there it more or less goes into lively chatting with Steven -- Riley’s not too practiced with proper socialization and the blobs of aura from all the people wandering the city make him slightly more distracted than usual. Not that Steven doesn’t drag him into being a contributor to conversation.

It turns out Rana owns a speedboat and is more than happy to ferry them to Mossdeep in exchange for someone paying to replace her gas, a duty for which Riley volunteers himself. Setting up takes a grand total of twenty minutes and they’re off, Riley and Lucario hanging around the back of the boat and already enthused about Hoenn’s oceans before they’re out of sight of Slateport Harbor. Rana’s let out a Milotic to swim along nearby. Lucario barks at it occasionally, as well as at some aquatic Pokemon they see- the water’s clear and so full of  _ stuff _ , a complete contrast to the water around Canalave, which is generally cold and hosts little visible diversity. Riley interests himself with novelties: pokemon he’s not familiar with, new ocean, and the like.

Steven stays near the wheel for a while, catching up with his friend, as well as briefly going over why he has a companion with him, for once. It’s hardly usual. Once Rana has been appeased, Steven feels free to interrupt the man and his dog currently leaning over the railings of the ship.

“As you can see, it’s much less dreary than Sinnoh. Also, keep leaning over so far and you’re going to fall in.”

“Sinnoh’s great, and I am  _ not _ .” Riley looks over his shoulder at Steven with a huff, but he can only manage to hold a pout for about three seconds before he gestures out over the water, where a few meters away a couple of yellow, spiked fins poke out of the water. “I found fish.”

“Congratulations, Riley, it’s carvanha. They’re kind of not the nicest things out here, though.” Steven takes a spot next to Riley, looking over the spray from the boat. Lucario keeps sticking her nose in it, apparently on accident, but doesn’t seem to mind much.

“If I try hard enough, I can feel some of the pokemon around here. In the water.”

Steven looks over at Riley, expression slightly surprised. “You can? I thought your aura thing was mostly just people and,” he gestures at Lucario, “those guys.”

“It was, but. Usually I could faintly read pokemon, if they were close. But I don’t know, I just feel like I’ve been getting better at it lately. And now finding pokemon aura is a lot easier.”

“Huh. Well, with any luck, you’ll also be better at blocking out people’s aura and not get overwhelmed by the noise and freeze in the middle of a city street. Again.” Steven snickers, and Riley swats him in the arm.

“Rude.” Though it’s not as if Riley doesn’t agree with the teasing. He resumes looking out at the water, commenting any time they pass over a particularly large group of fish.

Until they pass near a particularly dark patch of water off to the right and Riley suddenly stands up, expression a combination of alarmed and bewildered. “What- What is  _ over there _ ?” It’s this small grouping of people, he can tell. Like a small town, only there  _ is _ no small town. There’s some rocks, and there’s some particularly deep water, and there’s the definite sense of people down there. More than any reasonable group of divers. Riley glances between Steven and Rana, the latter of whom decided to bend over the wheel, giggling.

“That’s Sootopolis, silly.”

Steven clarifies, considering the name of the anomaly does not help Riley at all. “It’s an underwater city. They live in a little volcanic crater. Geologically fascinating, weird to come across unexpected.”

Riley stares over at the deep water. “Weird is right.” And now he just wants to go investigate. He concludes that he’ll bring it up later and resumes experimenting with how far away he can sense something until it’s Steven’s turn to jump up and walk to the front of the ship.

 

Mossdeep rises over the horizon like mist. It’s surrounded by rocks and that is what it seems like at first, another vaguely defined piece of stone smacked in the middle of the ocean. As the boat approaches it takes shape. The tower of the Space Center is definable first, then buildings sort themselves into appearing and soon enough the entire island is definable. The boat has to pull to a stop not particularly close to shore, as the sand and submerged rock close to Mossdeep make the water too short to bring the boat through easily.

That does not at all deter Steven, as he just hops over the side railing of the boat and splashes loudly into the sandbank, water coming up to about mid-calf. He grins brightly and holds his arms out to gesture at the island behind him.

“We have arrived.”

Mossdeep is a large city considering its location and the ease with which it could flood. It’s still not large, but it’s not limited to three houses and the Space Center by any means. Buildings emerge from behind mangroves edging the landmass. The Center, of course, stretches over them all and stands as a notifier to ships in the distance that Mossdeep exists. The shallows outside the island feature tiny curious fish, flitting around Steven’s ankles to investigate. Riley jumps into the shallows more hesitantly, sloshing around entirely unfamiliar with the landscape. The motorboat starts up again and the group waves Rana off.

Steven sets off toward the stairs leading from the beach to the island proper when he abruptly realizes Riley is no longer behind him. He turns, and Riley is staring with a wide grin at the water around his feet. Lucario splashes enthusiastically next to him.

“Riley, we’re.. what’re you doing?”

“ _ Look _ , there’s little remoraids. There’s so many….” He trails off, sloshing vaguely and sending the tiny silver fish in surprised circles.

This is the second time Steven’s laughed at Riley’s enthusiasm over novelties. It’s… definitely endearing. That’s a good phrase for it. “Yeah, I guess Canalave isn’t really a good place for beaches, huh? But c’mon, we should probably put your stuff in the house, first.”

Riley sighs dramatically, though his expression is still too happy for indicating disappointment. It’s probably the best he’s felt in months. Things are new, his friend is happy, and not everything feels like he’s wading through mud to get anywhere. It’s a nice change and he’s allowed his happiness over it. He adjusts the backpack he’s got on and follows after Steven (still keeping an eye on the aquatic life and the lucario that’s prancing about after them).

Steven leads the troupe to a cottage near the west coastline, sitting off to the side. It looks very unassuming. Until Steven opens the door and reveals that a ridiculous amount of area is taken up by a rock collection. All carefully labelled and the ones Riley assumes are the favourites in their own glass containers. Yup, definitely the house of Steven Stone.

“Welcome to, uhm… your temporary home for a while, I suppose.” Sounds good enough. Steven gestures Riley to enter with a flourish. He does. 

“Thank you. Nice stone collection, I expected nothing less.” 

Steven shuts the door behind him and spends a few seconds eyeing the interior fondly. Everything’s clean and nothing’s off. Excellent. He deposits his bag on the couch and gestures for Riley to do the same. He does, but shortly after makes a quiet “oh!” and starts riffling through the backpack.

Steven leans over his shoulder curiously. “What is it?”

“I remembered, I brought the—  _ ow! _ ” The exclamation is more of surprise than pain, and Riley yanks his hand back from the bag. Steven reacts immediately, stepping closer to Riley’s side where he can see. No blood, at least?

“What is it? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I. I thought I grabbed what I was looking for, but something in there  _ burns _ .” Riley sounds curious (and somewhat miffed) which leads Steven to figure he’s probably alright. But it’s a very weird sentence.

“Burns? Here, let me see.”

“Nah, I got it.” Riley reaches back into the bag, and within a couple of seconds he once again hisses in pain. He’s not deterred, however, mostly because he wants to find out  _ why _ things hurt. He procures from the pocket a rock, covered in crystals. He’s holding it carefully, touching only the containing rock and not the pinkish crystals growing from it. “There we are. I figured I’d bring it since you wanted to look at it, but I don’t know why it’s suddenly become some kind of heat sink.”

Steven peers at it curiously, then reaches out and pokes one of the crystals before Riley can move it away. “It doesn’t feel like anything to me.” He takes it from Riley’s hand and holds the conglomerate normally. Nope, no sense of heat or anything. No more so than a rock would naturally accumulate, anyways.

“What?” There’s no way. It was hot seconds ago, all sharp and burning to the touch. Like Riley touched a spark. Even when he tries to get close again to see if maybe it was just a brief effect, no, he has to draw his hand back before actually tapping the crystal. Riley looks at the rock, then back at Steven, brows furrowed. “Somehow I think this doesn’t mean anything very good.”

Steven looks equally concerned. “Somehow I think talking to Cynthia is definitely a good idea.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An expository Skype call

Unfortunately for Riley and Steven, Cynthia is not easily accessible. Well, she is, though only over text and only for brief stretches at a time, which Steven finds generally inconvenient. This is a messy matter and both Steven and Riley are unfortunately bad at dealing with large issues over text. Video calling Cynthia would be the ideal method, but that requires a tad more effort. Apparently there’s some new Trainer vying for their Sinnoh League recognition and Cynthia is quite preoccupied watching her Elites and the visitor battle it out. Instead of concise messages, Cynthia is repeatedly pestered over text until she replies with at time when she’ll be able to sit down and do a video chat, which would be sometime around midnight in Mossdeep’s time. Part of her wants to tell the two messaging her to shut up and wait, but that fact that it’s Steven and Riley, notorious avoiders of technology, trying to get along of her makes the Sinnoh champion a bit more lenient, considering they must have a good reason for urgency.

Steven grumbles about this regardless. What an inconvenient time for the Sinnoh elites have to deal with a challenger. Riley doesn’t mind one way or the other; this gives him as much free time as he likes to wander about Mossdeep with Lucario and Steven. Steven isn’t given a say in the matter, he’s just told “well, if there’s no other innocents you want to irritate, come walk with me and stop worrying” and gently tugged out the door.

As with any place Riley has not been before (and many places that he has), he has the pervasive urge to explore as much as possible. Not even the vague dizziness and fatigue that came back after his brief respite can keep him from wanting to wander. Besides, he’s got Steven by the hand should something actually happen. (And to narrate where they’re walking and how mangroves work, because Riley has no clue.)

Lucario quite likes the mangroves lining Mossdeep, and she manages to distance herself from protectively flanking Riley’s heels in order to play tag with herself among the shallow water and roots. The feeling of actually taking a break from everything that’s been happening is incredibly welcome, as is the idea that Riley might actually manage to fix himself up. He doesn’t really know how that would happen, and is still hesitant to admit aloud that something’s wrong and it scares him, but he’s going to take the small positive of believing things will definitely turn out fine. Riley relaxes and does his best to make Steven do so as well. While Riley doesn’t really like reading people’s aura without permission, sometimes he catches Steven’s from the corner of his eye, and on occasion he can see daubs of concern-azure interfering with the usual thistle-purple of the former champion’s aura. Though sometimes there’s other little flecks of sunrise colours, positive ones, and those, if anything, are what Riley’s trying to encourage in Steven’s mood.

Riley doesn’t let go of Steven’s hand throughout their about two hour long jaunt unless he absolutely has to for whatever reason. Steven’s warm and Riley figures that if the feeling of some other trusted human being next to him makes him feel slightly less like a tired, mildly anxious wreck, maybe it’ll work to reassure Steven that Riley’s not going to abruptly vanish or keel over.

It does. Steven appreciates contact more than he chooses to say or think about too much. Instead, he points out Shoal Cave in the distance once it’s visible, talks about the Space Center, the fantastic young kinds running the Gym, really anything he can think of so Riley at least knows Mossdeep on a superficial level. It’s Steven’s home and he both loves it and is very happy to show it off.

Maybe if Riley likes the island as much as Steven does he’ll have an extra layer of motivation in the future to actually visit for once. Once this whole mess is wrapped up and they don’t have it to worry about.

They’re forced to return back to Steven’s house about an hour after it gets dark. 

After that, it’s mostly just a matter of milling around until it’s time for Cynthia to call. Riley occupies himself with dumping his personal items in the spare room. Steven was right, it had quite apparently not been touched in quite a while. Steven’s somewhat sheepish over it, which Riley completely brushes off. It’s still quite a lot nicer than Iron Island’s room. He appreciates it.

Around 11:30, Steven starts fiddling with a laptop he procured from some drawer somewhere, Riley doesn’t know. It’s a fairly outdated device, and Steven’s unfamiliarity with it ends in him perched on the couch, clicking semi-randomly and irritatedly at settings controls. Riley’s next to him being of no use whatsoever. He actually has very little idea how any sort of technology works, and is content to watch bemusedly as Steven attempts to resurrect the laptop he hasn’t touched in at least a year. He gets it working before missing schedule, thankfully.

Cynthia’s face occupies the screen not five minutes later. Riley leans over and waves at her happily.

“Hello again,” she opens with. “What’s Steven worked up over?” 

Steven pushes Riley’s head out of the way so that Cynthia can actually see him. “Something broke Riley and it keeps getting continually weirder.”

Here Riley interjects with something along the lines of ‘I’m not  _ broken _ ’. Steven continues on his explanation.

“Seems more like the weirdness that happens when powerful pokemon are running around, so I thought I would ask you as opposed to just leaving him comatose on Iron Island.”

Cynthia shows marked concern at that, staring with brows furrowed at the pixellated image of Riley on her computer screen. “You are telling me that one of my friends is.. inexplicably going into comas?”

“No,” Riley interjects, “I’m not unconscious. It’s just being, ah.” What’s the best way to phrase this that will minimize Cynthia’s concern. “Prone to falling asleep and being difficult to wake up.”

“ _ Riley Maris!”  _ Both Steven and Riley are very taken aback by how perfectly Cynthia captures the tone of outraged mother. They pale. She reddens, annoyed. “You have lived in Canalave for  _ how long _ and you still don’t know about this kind of thing? A kid nearly died two years ago with that exact same description.” She tells the two to hold still as she excuses herself to go find something in her bookshelves. Both Steven and Riley knowing Cynthia’s bookshelves and organizational systems, this could last anywhere from ten minutes to over an hour. In the interim, Steven and Riley whisper at one another.

“What is she talking about, a kid dying?”

“I don’t know, I don’t get told about stuff like that.”

“Regardless, now you have two people yelling at you that this is bad, are you still going to try and play yourself off as perfectly fine?”

“It’s not  _ that _ bad!”

They continue bickering back and forth in whispers, preoccupied enough with this activity to not notice Cynthia’s return. She watches them, vaguely confused. The microphone isn’t good enough to pickup what they’re talking about, but they seem very into this discussion, and could probably use a reminder in what personal space is.

“A-hem.” No one notices her. She tries again. “Excuse me, I can’t actually hear if you’re discussing anything important, but I’m back.”

The fact that the response Steven and Riley give her is various stuttered excuses is evidence that no, it was probably not an important discussion. Cynthia holds a newspaper clipping up to her webcam. It’s too grainy to be easily read, but there is a clear enough picture of a young kid sitting in a bed, with an older girl standing next to him looking disinterested. Riley blinks a few times and leans closer to the monitor. The girl looks familiar. “Is that miss Dawn?”

Cynthia nods. “Correct, this was about a month after the major incident with Galactic. Long story short, a boy in Canalave fell asleep and his family couldn’t get him to wake up for over a day. Dawn was in town and said she’d help, when asked the family said someone had told her to go to some islands north of Canalave and find a feather from Cresselia.”

Throughout the story, Riley’s expression had best been described as one of concerned interest, but at the mention of the name ‘ _ Cresselia _ ’, it switches to mild alarm. He leans back slightly as if spooked. Cynthia doesn’t notice, but Steven looks over him with eyebrows raised inquisitively. At the lack of reply, Steven just lightly knocks his shoulder against Riley’s. A reminder: We’re here, you’re fine.

“And from what  _ else _ I got from this event, this has happened before, every couple of decades, to people who spend too long up north in Canalave.” Cynthia looks up, eyeing Riley. “You know, like  _ you _ do. Hm, I never thought it might affect you, though….” She trails off, her turn to mutter to herself before voicing up again. “Every time it comes up, there’s mention of something called Darkrai (that I assume is a pokemon) linked with it, but nobody ever specifies that. Even in the older stories….”

Steven pipes up again. “So you’re saying that all we need to do is find where Cresselia lives and get a feather? That can’t be that hard.” Riley twitches again. He doesn’t know why the talk about this is starting to make him very anxious, but here he is.

“There’s that, but I’m not positive it would solve it. I don’t know how it works. Is there anything else that’s weird?”

Riley knows there’s something he’s forgetting, he just can’t recall it right now. Things are getting increasingly staticky in his head and he feels very worried over nothing in particular. Steven, at least, is unaffected by the greyish waves of anxiety curling off of Riley’s aura. “Ah! Yes. Mystery rock.” Not a mystery for long if Steven has his way, which he undoubtedly will. He turns around and leans over the back of the couch to lift the stone he’s conveniently placed on the table behind them.

“Why is this rock a mystery?” Cynthia asks. Steven Stone, not knowing something about stones? Mark her down as incredulous. And very intrigued.

“Because if Riley touches the crystals, it hurts. Yes?” He looks up at Riley for verification. Riley just nods distractedly. Alright then, Steven will allow him slipping into being nonverbal again, that’s fine. “And they don’t look like the kind of crystal formation I’d expect. They seem to luminesce in cave-darkness,” Steven prattles on, probably giving a bit too much detail about the rock and Cynthia flips through a worn-looking book on her lap. This it so be expected from an enthusiastic geologist, but Cynthia has to cut him short. Not only is it not entirely useful information, it’s late and she can only do this for so long before she starts yawning.

“I’m sure the geological implications are fascinating, but I’m not really sure. There’s something I recall mentioned a few times about how Cresselia would manifest her power in a physical form to ‘keep away nightmares’ or something, and imbue her power in the land itself, so maybe it’s a little bit like a lunar wing, only I don’t know if it would work the same.” Or even if that was remotely true, but it’s the closest Cynthia can approximate from her collection of mythos, and since mythos seems to be a highly applicable topic, she’ll take it. She closes the book with an ill-disguised yawn. “Steven, I’ll photocopy anything relevant and email them to you tonight, okay? And if  _ anything _ changes or when Riley comes back, I expect to be notified. No one’s going comatose on my watch. Riley, I’d say get some sleep because you look half dead, but I really don’t know if that’s the most tactful thing to advise right now.” Cynthia gives them a final appraising stare before sighing and giving a proper goodbye. Steven and Riley reciprocate, and the camera cuts out.

Cynthia sighs. She really is quite worried about what Riley’s gotten himself into now, but at least he’s got someone on his side. The Sinnoh champion doubts she’d have to step in at this point considering what Steven has already done and how determined he seems to be, but still. Illogical though her concern may be, she’s going to worry about her friend’s health now that it’s been brought up.  The best thing she can do about it now is send anything relevant to Steven. Inhale, pause, exhale. Alright. Time to start up the scanner.


	8. Chapter 8

With the laptop pushed away until it’s needed again, Steven shifts, sitting sideways so he can face Riley. He examines his companion for a few seconds before speaking. “I was under the impression that conversation helped, but somehow you look even worse after it.” 

Riley looks at Steven, expression a mix of forced blankness and slight distress he can’t chase off. “You could say it was a  _ bit _ worrying to be told I’m probably possessed and running the risk of death.” The main response to this is a frown. Steven didn’t really see this as bad news, not quite. Bad news would be Cynthia saying she didn’t know what could be happening, or that there was nothing anyone could do. Having both what’s happening and what’s to be done answered seemed very satisfactory to Steven, and he told Riley as much.

He has a point. Riley knows this, and it only mildly alleviates the anxiety coiling around his chest. Riley sighs. “I don’t know. There’s still something about it that bothers me. Like— ahm, like finding Cresselia. I don’t know, I just get the feeling it won’t go well.” He doesn’t know why he gets that feeling. It’s just there, buzzing in the staticky parts of his head. 

Steven just reaches up, completely serious and focused, and… pats Riley’s head. There’s something completely absurd about the gravity with which Steven does it that Riley can’t help but burst out in a tired giggle.

Steven considers this a victory and smiles as well. “It’s fine. You’ll be fine. I mean, if anything wants to kill you it’ll have to go through me first.” It’s the first time Steven has actually said anything along these lines aloud, and it just sort of slips out. He has, of course, previously decided that he’s going to help Riley with this and announced as such, but saying that he will do this for any and all problems sounds a bit too close to a declaration of affection, and Steven hasn’t planned that one out properly. He realizes he should think about that a bit more than he has (which has been approximately not at all) _right_ after he speaks.

Riley notices Steven’s embarrassment directly after he speaks and finds it, as well as word choice, kind of funny. He laughs quietly, two notes. Finding himself rather devoid of energy after the day (not entirely usual, it’s night and extra exhaustion hits him like a brick), Riley decides the next appropriate action is to let himself fall forward, landing nicely on Steven’s shoulder.

It would be nicer if Steven weren’t quite so angular, but it’s good enough. He’ll take it. Steven seems surprised by this but adjusts.

“So you’re saying that I’m the princess to be rescued in this tale?” Riley asks.

“Hm?”

“You sounded as if you’d decided that you were the knight in some children’s tale. Protecting me, meaning I’m the princess if this story follows the usual archetypes.” Riley yawns. “Though since I  _ do _ have some sort of magic curse on me, apparently, you’re not that far off.”

Steven considers discussing this debate further because he did not mean for that to be taken that way, but instead decides it more prudent to tell Riley to go to bed. It’s rather late. Riley refuses in childish fashion, and offhandedly considers biting Steven for insisting on his sleep. Sadly he doesn’t not have the energy for the declaration of war that would be, and his head is too staticky for him to consider going to sleep.

Steven nevertheless continues to prod at him, and Riley can feel the concern radiating off of him in taupe waves whenever Riley closes his eyes.

“Hmmmm. I am sleeping right now.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“Sleeptalking.”

“I know what your sleeptalk sounds like, and it isn’t half this coherent.”

He has a point. Riley exhales and adjusts himself, turning his head enough where he can look up at Steven out of one eye. More like the lower side of Steven’s cheek, but he doesn’t feel like moving to get any proper eye contact. That’s effort. “Let me look at your aura.”

The sudden topic shift surprises Steven. Do what now? Steven’s not actually sure what that means. “Don’t you do that all the time with everybody?”

“Not unless they’re being loud about their emotions. It’s  _ rude  _ to read people’s emotions without warning.” Or so Riley decided, himself being all about personal privacy. 

Steven shrugs the shoulder that doesn’t have Riley on it. “Sure.”

Riley closes his eyes again and exhales slowly, relaxing himself. He doesn’t need to do this in order to read anyone, just to mentally prepare to be inundated with someone else’s emotion. When he opens his eyes, it appears that most everything has been overlaid with thistle-purple. Steven’s colour. It carries no emotion by itself, those are mingling around the edges, and Riley feels them as he notices them. Confusion and uncertainty just barely hovering about the edges. Sensical, as Steven doesn’t really know what he consented to. Slight worry in dusky indigo hues. And most notably, all around the borders of Steven’s aura suffuses an orangey pink glow. Riley shuts his eyes again. He wanted to know but he also didn’t, because it means he really does have to acknowledge another dimension of this entire arrangement. He hesitates to name the colour or the feeling, but finally settles on ‘ _ affection _ ’ as a safe term. He can’t be too harsh. It’s this more than anything else that diffuses the anxiety and static in Riley’s head.

The sheer determination with which Steven’s affection throws itself at Riley means he has no hope of keeping it from influencing his own current emotion, even if he wanted to. It’s nice to feel for a second like he’s not angry at himself because it’s his fault this all started. It’s nice to pretend for a second he’s capable of cutting himself a break without Steven’s love doing it for him.

Wait— damnit. No calling it love.

That might more severely force Riley to think about how he feels about this and wants to go about it, while knowing that this particular excursion could very well end with him slipping into a coma and dying. He can’t do that to Steven. More selfishly, he can’t do it to  _ himself _ .

It’ll just… be a problem for later. For the moment, Riley’s perfectly content to stay balanced against Steven, watching the purple ebb and flow of his aura with half-open eyes. Steven mutters something Riley pays no attention to (he’s trying to inform his companion that he’ll be moving and trying to see if Cynthia sent anything yet). Steven does move and Riley just drops his head onto Steven’s leg.

Steven responds with an exclamation of “ _ Ow, _ jeez,” but nonetheless places a hand on the side of Riley’s head, indicating he can stay. Awkwardly bunched up as Riley may be, he’s comfortable and there is not a convincing enough argument in the world to get him to move.

He’ll just sleep here. Yeah, that’ll be okay. He closes his eyes, and cuts off his aura reading. As nice as everything dyed Steven’s purple may be, Riley feels skeptical of anything good coming of him being that deeply entrenched in Steven’s aura for too long. Especially while asleep and thusly running the risk of being exposed to Darkrai (or whatever it may be in his head).

“Was my aura worthwhile?” Steven asks, joking lilt in the question.

“Mmmmm-hm. Thank you.”

“You can sleep there if you don’t mind me waking you when I move.” Steven can tell Riley’s not too eager to sleep in any proper location. Besides, Steven likes being able to keep an eye on him this way.

Riley’s only response is an incoherent “mfph,” interpreted correctly as agreement. He dozes off as Steven intermittently refreshes his email.

For the first time since this started, both of them are equally wary but strongly confident they can work out all problems.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw for: violence, pretty much death, blood and all that fun stuff.

Riley does not fall asleep easily. He floats between unconsciousness and wakefulness, at times dimly aware of noises from Steven shifting or putting his laptop back on the table. When he finally does manage to pass out enough to fall into a dreaming state, he’s greeted once more with the now-almost-familiar duplicate of himself standing in a completely black landscape. Riley walks over to them. The doppelgänger nervously fidgets with the knot of their red tie.

Just the person Riley wants to talk to, though they look slightly worried to see him. Too bad for them, Riley thinks.

“Are you Darkrai?” Riley asks. The copy of himself standing opposite himself stills their hands, thinking.

“Partially. Not any more, I don’t think. Not at this point.”

“But you  _ were _ , then?” Riley feels on the verge of something, though it’s mixed with a sense of trepidation. Previously, he got the feeling that this  _ thing _ in his head was trying to communicate more and just couldn’t, but now they’re coming off as intentionally cagey. The doppelgänger takes a hesitant step back away from Riley, an arm dropping protectively over their midsection.

“Yes. I was a piece of Darkrai’s energy.”

“What are you now?”

A pause, then a regretful sigh. “Now, I’m a part of yours.”

Riley stands still, processing. They’re… him. He’s stuck with this? If he follows Cynthia’s advice, will it not go away? Riley’s copy— Darkrai— whatever it is— looks away and fades back into the shadows.

Or, tries to, as they only just start losing opacity before something makes them snap their head up, eyes wide, and exclaim something in a language Riley doesn’t know but is quite clearly an explicative. Their attention is focused on a point somewhere over Riley’s shoulder.

Riley doesn’t even get through turning around before a voice issues out that makes him mentally second his companion’s curses, with a couple more choice phrases of his own.

“Riley?”

The voice is unmistakably Steven’s. Riley finishes turning to see him looking aptly bewildered at running into two Riley’s standing in an otherwise black space, both of which look incredibly upset to see him.

Darkrai is tense, fists clenched and shoulders raised, talking to themselves and Riley in quiet apologetic panic. “What did you  _ do? _ Oh Arceus, I’m so sorry, I’ve already hurt you enough I thought I had a grasp on protecting you from it but I can’t help  _ him too _ I can’t I can’t I’m sorry I don’t mean it I don’t  _ mean to hurt you I don’t— _ ”

“Steven, you have to wake up. Right now.” Between a grasp on his own situation and the panicking fragment of nightmare next to him, Riley’s safe making the assumption that Steven isn’t a part of his dream-consciousness that belongs. Steven fails to obey Riley, instead becoming even more confused and resolutely continuing to exist.

Riley can sense things changing, be it the shift in the shadowy void around him that he doesn’t know how he can sense or Darkrai abruptly shutting up that clues him off. He just knows things are going to go right back into being nightmares and something’s about to go horribly wrong. Fear and anxiety build in his chest at an alarming rate as he quickly steps over to Steven. To do what, he doesn’t know.

Whatever he plans on doing becomes a moot point. The shadows shifting around their feet blossom upwards, encircling both Steven and Riley. Steven realizes what he’s gotten himself into, looking up at the semi-visible sharp points of darkness over their heads with an exhaled “ _ oh” _ . Riley’s only a step away from Steven and he wants to  _ believe _ , he’s trying so hard to grasp at the idea that if he can just grab Steven he can at least protect him—

But no, the points loop back down and descend the second Riley’s outstretched fingers reach Steven’s shirt. The first one goes neatly through Steven’s throat. Riley’s mouth opens. Another daggered piece of dark neatly enters Steven’s chest, slipping between ribs and exiting through his back with no difficulty at all. Riley’s screaming at him, Darkrai, shadows, himself. Steven stares at Riley, silver eyes wide and rapidly becoming dull.

Further bits of shadow continue falling through and around Steven and Riley, but Riley’s stopped paying attention after the first two. His hands are already bloody and Steven’s already dead. A bit of shadow glances through Riley’s arm and he hardly notices. “Wake up, damn it,  _ wake up! _ ”

If he’s screaming this at himself or Steven’s body, Riley can’t tell. The shadows start to fade back into the void, which, in Riley’s perspective, infinitely worsens the situation. There’s nothing to support Steven except Riley any more. So he falls onto Riley, the dead weight and abject horror of having Steven full of holes ending in Riley sinking to the ground, bent over Steven and mumbling incoherently.

Dakrai a few yards away is doing similar, doubled over themselves with their hands over their head and speaking indistinctly. Riley screams at them to do something, this is their fault. They don’t respond outside of muttering.

Blood covered hands shakily hold the sides of Steven’s face. Riley mutters something half-thought, before being struck with the realization—

_ If this is a piece of Steven’s consciousness-aura-something that came here and died, where is the rest of him _ ?

He better not be dead. Arceus help them both, Steven Stone had better not be dead.

Riley grits his teeth, releases Steven’s body from his grip, and stands. Sharp steps take him to his doppelgänger, who he grabs by the lapels and hauls into a fully standing position. Darkrai stops muttering, still looking terrified. Riley glares.

“Wake me up. Now.”

“I don’t know how.”

“ _ Learn! _ ”    
Darkrai doesn’t respond, just staring at Riley again. Riley doesn’t know why they’re so damn  _ afraid _ , and it makes him fear the consequences of this nightmare will be greater than he thought.

It’s the pokemon of nightmares, however. Eternal sleep, lost in dreams. They  _ can’t _ wake Riley up, as much as they’d like to oblige. Riley abruptly realizes this, that it’s up to him.

Fine. Fine. Deconstruct this mess. This power’s a part of him now, apparently, and he’ll be damned if he can’t control it. Just once, that’s all he’s asking. One exertion of power. He can do it, he’s not given the title of aura guardian for nothing.

Too bad he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

The dreamscape, however, has an aura. Darkrai just watches silently as Riley grabs the aura and  _ tears _ .


	10. Chapter 10

Riley wakes up with a jolt. He’s in complete disarray mentally; his perspective keeps shifting. He’s covered in blood, no he’s not, he’s dead, no, he’s Darkrai, wearing the suit the pokemon-fragment keeps clothing his body in, no, no, damn it. He’s Riley and he is alive. He repeats this to himself, and though it fails to sink in enough for him to fully come back to himself, it works enough to remind him he came back for Steven. He’s only had a couple seconds to regroup his thoughts, but Riley’s already scrambling up into a kneeling position, hands fumbling for Steven’s neck. Please let there be a pulse, the dreams can’t affect reality  _ that _ much, please, he thinks, momentarily feeling as if his hands are once more slipping against blood.

There is a pulse, identifiable against Riley’s shaking fingers.

Riley allows himself some modicum of relief. Steven stirs from the touch, shifting his head from where he’d fallen asleep to look up blearily at Riley, attempting to blink himself awake. Riley stares at him, mouth partially open but completely blanking on what he should be saying. One of Steven’s hands reaches up towards Riley’s at his neck. Before it gets there, Riley’s leaning forward and pressing a kiss against Steven’s mouth.

It’s not particularly lovely, more firm and very desperate, but Riley acts on impulse and figures it’s the best available way to get his message across. It lasts. Riley kisses Steven again when he regains control over himself, this time apologetic and much softer. Steven gets half a second to respond in kind before Riley cuts him off, dropping his head and staring firmly at the upholstery of the couch.

“Sorry,” he mutters hoarsely. He wants to kiss Steven again, possibly not stop, because he feels as if some firmly shut gates have opened and he’s finally allowed to get something  _ better _ out of this godawful ordeal, and he wants it. Riley wants this so  _ badly _ , some second level of friendship where he knows Steven will always come for him— he knew on some level beforehand, that Steven was like this, but now it’s stronger, somehow proven by the lengths Steven willingly went to— and where he can put himself in someone else’s hands and not be afraid. But he  _ can’t _ and this stupid, horrible, asinine problem he’s got himself into is exactly why he can’t — shouldn’t— let himself kiss Steven again and pretend as if it couldn’t go wrong.

It’s Riley’s own damn fault he had to watch Steven die, he’ll be fucked if he deserves Steven’s love now.

Steven’s fingers curl around Riley’s at his neck, stilling Riley’s still-shaking hands and bringing them back down. “It’s fine,” Steven replies quietly. “It’s fine.”

“It’s my fault you ended up in my head.” Once he says it, Riley realizes that he doesn’t know why he’s so certain Steven himself even remembers being a part of his nightmare. He just is. 

“It was an accident, Riley.” Apparently Riley was correct in his assumption after all. “No one’s actually hurt, it’s  _ okay _ .”

Despite Steven’s best efforts, Riley refuses to be placated. He’s only just coming down from panic, his head’s still buzzing. “Steven, but. If something goes wrong, if you get too pulled into this like I am, you. You don’t deserve that.” Some part of Riley’s logic wants to take Steven and keep him the hell away in the interest of protection, but it’s only strong enough to influence what Riley’s saying. His actions are firmly in the camp of keeping Steven as close as possible. He refuses to let go of Steven’s hand, or to move from where he’s awkwardly kneeling over the former champion.

“Riley. I  _ promise you _ . I’m going to stay with you. We’re going to fix this. Stop panicking. I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to let you fret and think you have to be alone for your or my safety. I love you. Alright?” Steven’s voice is remarkably even. Riley more processes the tone than the words. Close enough.

“Yeah.” Riley exhales slowly, not entirely managing to relax, but something similar. Steven ducks into Riley’s field of vision (not a very difficult task, even though Riley’s looking down, as Steven’s a couple inches shorter). Greyblue eyes blink up at Riley.

“It’s right. We already established we can solve this.” He’s too close and at too awkward of an angle to kiss Riley but Steven Stone is not stopped by trivialities. He ends up lightly bonking their foreheads together (earning what could be called a smile from Riley, if you squinted) before Riley obliges and grants Steven the room to kiss the corner of his mouth.

He plans on doing something else, but his aspirations are dashed by a wide yawn interrupting him.

“Oh. It’s late,” Riley belatedly observes. He’s only just realizing that Steven is  _ not _ used to waking abruptly at godawful hours of the morning, as well as the fact that it  _ is _ some godawful hour of the morning. “Go to bed.”

“Ri—“ Steven complains at him as Riley extracts himself from on top of Steven to stand in front of the couch, only stumbling once along the way.

“No, go to bed, preferably away from me.” He tugs at Steven’s sleeve (they hadn’t even changed out of their day clothes, Riley notes), and Steven gets up with only a lone mutter of complaint. He prods Steven off towards his own bedroom. Steven really doesn’t need the prodding at all, Riley’s just enjoying the proximity of hovering at Steven’s shoulder.

Once Steven disappears behind his door, however, Riley’s left staring and looking lost. Huh. Well, that certainly was a ride. He can feel his ears reddening as the previous sequence of actions dawns on him. A hand scrubs the side of his face. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he’ll rub off the embarrassment.

No, that one’s unlikely.

Riley hunts down the guest room, conveniently located on the opposite side of the house. He’s had enough of Steven popping into his dreams for the night and doesn’t plan on it again. Nor does he really plan on sleeping either, he’s dealt enough with that for now. Instead he goes and fetches Lucario.

She pops out of her pokeball and immediately sits next to Riley, head on his knee and looking up curiously at him. She can tell something happened, but she can also tell it wasn’t entirely  _ bad _ , per se. Unfortunately for Lucario’s curiosity, Riley offers little explanation aside from an “It’ll work out,” said to himself as much as it is the pokemon. He scratches behind her ears and she huffs. ‘ _ I trust you,’ _ she replies.

“People are do that sometimes, I’ve no idea why.”

‘ _ A joke? From you? Things must have really turned up. _ ’ Dogs can’t giggle, but Riley gets the feeling that if she could right now, she would. He lapses into silence, void of a reply except for a small smile. One could say that, maybe.

He’ll just while away the night like this and leave himself in Steven’s (and Cynthia’s) hands for their next step.


	11. Chapter 11

Cynthia proves, as always, an incredibly capable woman. Her supply of folklore is inexhaustible and leads to Steven having more emails than expected in the morning. Like any historian, Cynthia came armed with as many primary sources as possible but was kind enough to give bullet-point summaries of anything she found relevant, saving Steven’s recently-woken-up brain from having to parse though too much fluff. He peruses that over morning tea.

A majority of her notes are things that seem straightforward enough for Steven to classify them as ‘doable’. Cresselia lives north of Canalave, its feathers are proven to ward off sleep issues, some kid she and Riley know called ‘Dawn Stava’ knows where and has already been called, Darkrai has never been found but is rumored to live north of Canalave as well. The note that interests Steven the most (despite relative irrelevance; he is a fixated man) is the brief point about the crystals-- a possible symbol of Cresselia’s gatekeeping, manifested dreams and protectiveness as it were. It’s that particular copy of folklore he’s scrolling through when Riley stumbles blearily into the kitchen, Lucario padding alongside. Now Steven’s surprised about two things: he has a rock supposedly made of abstract concepts  _ and _ Riley’s awake of his own volition. He’s not positive which of these is more unexpected a development.

“Good morning. Would you like some tea?”

“Nnhwha?”

“I don’t know why I thought you’d be coherent.” Steven grabs Riley a mug, fills it from the teapot and passes it over. Riley takes it appreciatively and having something to concentrate on doing (take cup, don’t drop it, etc.) wakes him up marginally further. He plops down on the kitchen chair next to where Steven was sitting and yawns widely.

“Mn. Thanks. Cynthia mailed you?”

“Yup. She wants you back at Canalave to go visit Cresselia with Dawn, I don’t know who that is.”

“A good kid. Strange, but trustworthy aura.” She’s really not a kid anymore. That’s not going to stop Riley. “When, how, you coming?”

“Next few days; dunno, we can always just use a plane for once if we want to do this quickly; you couldn’t leave me behind if you tried, Ri.”

Riley groans and lies back. “Planes are pricey. I’m glad you’re coming, though.”  

“Don’t worry about it.” As unenthused as he is about inevitably taking the job, Steven is heir to the largest business in Hoenn, as well as former pokemon Champion. He can afford plane tickets with zero concern. He gives Riley further bits of information he’s gleaned from Cynthia’s files as Riley sits and only pays half attention.

Riley still isn’t used to being anywhere that isn’t incredibly secluded, and while Mossdeep is a very tiny city it’s population density is nonetheless greater than that of Iron Island which he’s used to. He’s also not used to the fact that he can feel people very acutely now. He’s not even trying at all, but can still tell when someone walks by the house as their aura makes itself known in the edges of his consciousness. Occupying himself with this distracts him from Steven’s conversation, but he feels he picks up enough of the basic facts that it’s fine.

Until Steven catches him at it, that is. He leans over and flicks Riley’s forehead. “Did you catch any of that, or were you just staring blankly into space?”

“I got most of it. The important bits.” He’s not entirely wrong, the important bits as far as he’s concerned is what Steven already told him about first. The lore as to why he’s doing these things he’ll look into later when he’s inclined.

Steven lets him have that one and settle for staring curiously at Riley. Riley allows this for about three seconds before asking what Steven wants.

Quite a few things, which he has to think about for a second to find the correct phrasing. There is definitely a beat where he holds his hands out explanatorily, opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. He decides to just go for it. “So, about last night when we kind of had a  _ moment _ and you also panicked and kissed me a bit because you thought I dream-died?”

Riley goes a tad pink. Surely there is a less weird way to say that, but he can’t really think of one either. “That-- was definitely a thing I did, yes.”

“Do you think that’s a thing that could happen regularly, perhaps? Ideally without the emotional distress. ...Also ideally in a situation where you would also think about dating me.”

Riley snorts. “I’ll see what I can do about the first two. As for the third, I have thought about it and I’ll say that if we make it through running around legendary pokemon territory without dying or something, I will take you on a  _ fantastic _ date.”

Steven beams so unabashedly at Riley that Riley’s further embarrassed at how purley gleeful Steven is. Apparently he’s easy to please, Riley thinks to himself as Steven rambles a bit before going back to his readings with an air of being enormously happy with himself.

* * *

Passenger planes are not exactly a hot commodity throughout the world, pokemon being far more accessible and easier to use to get from town to town and regionhopping accomplished much like road trips would be. Planes are, however, very quick and due to their relative unpopularity Steven doesn’t have much difficulty securing transportation to Hearthome for the next day. Much easier to fly to Canalave from there as opposed to from Mossdeep.

The actual plane ride is completely uneventful, though Steven’s pretty sure getting on and off it nearly overloads Riley, as there’s not many landing points except for within large cities. With Riley’s aura sensing developing into something more acute, he’s having more difficulty than normal switching it off. Like in Mossdeep, when he could feel the colours of passersby, except now there are exponentially more people out and about and the colours are very disorienting. Steven has to stick close to give Riley something to concentrate on (which he would do regardless), lest the aura guardian get sensory overload and shut down in the middle of a hallway.

Aura superpowers, not as fun as advertised.

They make it safely out of Hearthome with Riley only once getting disoriented. Canalave isn’t much better in terms of population density, but Riley’s somewhat been able to adapt to the situation by then, as well as being more used to Canalave itself. He’ll have a killer headache by the time he leaves, but at least he’s not walking into walls or hiding in an alleyway. He’ll live. Skarmory had ferried them to Canalave’s PokeCenter, outside of which Dawn is waiting.

She stands still and proper outside the entrance, not showing much of any emotion when she spots Riley. She waves at him, which is all he’s going to get and pretty good as far as Dawn greetings go. Riley greets her and politely introduces Steven.

She points at Steven with a quirked eyebrow.

“Yes, he’s coming with me. Are you, or are you just our compass?” Riley replies.

Dawn shrugs silently and gestures for them to follow her as she sets off toward Canalave pier.

“Cynthia’s worried,” she finally speaks up, halfway to their destination. Her voice is very quiet. Steven’s surprised to hear anything from her at all, though Riley just takes it in stride.

“I’m aware. I appreciate both of your concern, but I will be fine. I have you all with me.”

Dawn casts him a glance that says she hopes so as much as an expression can communicate that. Riley smiles encouragingly at her. She casts her gaze forward once more and says nothing else until they get to the far northern pier.

Dawn points outward to the edge of the horizon. There’s absolutely nothing visible in the direction she’s pointing, though the fuzzy edges of Iron Island are barely discernible off to the right. “Straight north from here, you’ll see it. Ferry might take you. Or surf.” The ferryman both will do any favour Dawn asks, as she saved his son, and has sympathy for anyone having the same problem. She gestures over at the boat, from which the sailor leans over the railings, interested in the proceedings. Dawn gives him little attention, he is not who she cares about at this moment. Instead she turns and fixes her determined gaze on Riley. “Want me to come?”

“Only if you want to.”

She takes a step back indicating she’ll decline. As many legendary pokemon as she’s run into, she tries to make a point of not bothering them when it’s not necessary for her personally. She doesn’t need to attach herself onto Riley’s quest. He’ll be fine. He looks awful, sure, but that’s what Darkrai does to people, and he’s not comatose yet. That’s the important part. Dawn gives him a passing star. She switches to evaluating the man Riley’s got with him. Also looks determined, and like he wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say that he didn’t like. Dawn respects that at well. She gives silent approval to them both.

“Cresselia can be ...aggressive. She means well, but her island is sacred.” She gives Riley a meaningful glance. With how Cresselia reacted defensively when all Dawn wanted was a feather, she doubts the pokemon will be very enthused if Cynthia was right and Riley is actually personally tainted by Darkrai. “I doubt you will have to battle her, but do not go expecting an easy conversation.” She pauses again, regathering herself. Riley has rarely heard her talk this much in a single sitting before.   
“I hope you make it,” Dawn finishes. She doesn’t intend to sound foreboding, her tone is as amicable as she can manage.

“Thank you. We’ll come back soon enough. Stop by Iron Island sometime, I’ll make you cocoa and I want to see your Lucario.”

Dawn replies only with another small smile that Riley interprets as her acceptance of the offer. He will indeed see her later. That much is certain. While Dawn plans entirely on leaving Riley to his own devices, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to ensure that he returns to Canalave in one piece.

Cynthia would also come after her if she didn’t report back as soon as Riley came back. Dawn would prefer to avoid getting in trouble.    
It will be a while, however, so as Steven and Riley talk with the ferryman Dawn meanders off. Once mentioned, hot chocolate sounds like a  _ much _ better idea than sitting around a chilly pier for a few hours. She’ll be back soon enough.

For the time being, Seven and Riley still have to leave. The sailor seems nice enough, though a strange man the keeps gruffly rambling about his past experiences around the island. A lot of nonsense about being incapable of getting too close during the wrong phase of the moon and so forth, a point Steven deems null as the sun hasn’t set yet, and tonight’s half moon is not on the man’s list of inappropriate phases. This doesn’t stop the captain (a man named Eldritch, which Steven probably shouldn’t find amusing but can’t help himself with how much this guy seems to prophesy doom) from continuing to mutter darkly about how unfortunate is that he has to bring more people to the Island. He still allows Riley and Steven on the boat, a fairly small one, so they can set off without resorting to surfing pokemon.

It’s a long boat ride, a majority of which is spent either in silence of quiet mutters of conversation between Steven and Riley. As much as they’d like to say they are unworried, the combined efforts of everyone’s foreboding is getting to them. Dusk is falling by the time Fullmoon Island rises into view. It doesn’t seem like anything special to Steven, though Riley’s fingers tightening around his hand indicate otherwise.

Riley could tell the island was approaching before it was truly visible. A tight feeling in his chest and a faint pink glow on the horizon belied its presence. It multiplied when the actual body of the island became visible, his nerves worsening as the glow from the island’s aura practically matched that of the setting sun’s light. Everything gave off a bright pink glow. Not so much that it was too bright to look at, it was by no means a painful pink, but it roused Riley’s discomfort and very clearly gave the message that something lives on this island.

Something very strong that, if Dawn and Eldritch were anything to go by, would not be happy to see him.


	12. Chapter 12

The island’s light becomes tolerable once Riley has a couple minutes to acclimate himself to it, trying to tone down his aura sensitivity. Despite the fat that is was dusk by the time he and Steven disembarked (Eldritch flat-out refused to get off the ship, saying he’d rather  _ not _ incur a legend’s ire), as far as Riley’s vision was concerned the entire island was bathed in perpetual dawn.

The island itself is, for the most part, nondescript to those without aura sensitivity. It’s quiet, entirely lacking pokemon life. Trees and short grass cover it, becoming a forest to the east side of the island. Along the coasts and in places where rocks and dirt are visible, pink crystalline rocks are scattered sporadically. Riley makes a point not to step on any of the larger ones.

Riley leads the way into the forest, going whichever direction his gut tells him is a horrible direction to walk. Steven’s still got him by the hand, following alongside.

“So,” Steven starts, “Do we actually have a plan for this?”

“Ask politely?”

“I’ll mark that down as ‘we’re winging it’.” Riley’s forced to admit he’s not wrong. Talking to minor deities tends to be a task for plucky youngsters that believe in themselves and whatnot, which Riley feels the exact opposite of.

But he’s pretty sure this won’t kill him, and that’s the important part. They keep trudging through the trees until they see a clearing that seems oddly familiar to Riley. He hasn’t dreamed about this place exactly, but he’s dreamed about one like it. Even the trees have little dots of pink on them, not just of aura but of crystals visible to Steven as well. Riley gestures at a gap between the trees. If they look very closely, something inside is moving.

“I think this is it,” he says.

That question is answered for him by the emergence of a pokemon from the copse. It floats at human height, all pastel colours and graceful curves. The beautiful arcs of pink light forming loops around it darken in shade once it focuses on the two men. It is an incredibly beautiful pokemon. It is also not welcoming whatsoever.

_ ‘YOU HAVE TRESPASSED’, _ announces a foreign and distinctly angry voice that echoes in their heads. Steven steps forward at the same time Riley holds his hands up defensively.

Cresselia glows further pink, bobbing once. At her motion, an arc of psychic energy issues directly at Riley. He yelps and hops out of the way, and though he wasn’t hit directly the burst is still powerful enough to send him off-balance into a tree. Cresselia darts forward until she’s directly in his face, glowing angrily.

_ ‘What do  _ **_you_ ** _ think you’re doing’ _ , she thinks at him.

Riley would probably have a better response had he not just had his head smacked into a tree trunk. As it is, he manages a hazy “uuuuhhhhm,” before Steven steps in.

“Cresselia, please.” Steven’s tone is wary, but resolute. Cresselia turns to face him, saying nothing but remaining between him and Riley. Steven continues on. “We’re not here to challenge you or anything, we just… need a lunar wing. Riley’s not trying to harm anything here, he just needs  _ help _ .”

Cresselia watches Steven for a few seconds, evaluating, before her angry glow simmers down to a more peaceful glimmering. She bobs a little lower and peers over herself towards Riley once more. Now that he’s getting over the headache and getting hit, he actually feels a lot better than he has in a while. His head’s largely clear of gnawing anxiety and it gives him an incredible feeling of freedom. He straightens up and nods to Cresselia. She backs away, allowing Riley and Steven the ability to step forward and face her at a more direct angle, which they take. She focuses mainly on Riley.

_ ‘Then you are not a guise of Darkrai?’ _ she asks.

“I don’t think so. I know I’m myself, for the most part. Riley Maris, aura guardian, caretaker of Iron Island. Somewhat possessed by a bit of Darkrai.”

The rings around Cresselia expand and contract as if they are inhaling and she shifts from side to side. Procured from this motion are a few feathers, which she holds up with psychic powers in offering to Riley. He takes them carefully. They hurt his hands to hold, but not so much that it’s unendurable. Much like being around Cresselia itself, he has to acclimate. They’re painfully hot at first but settle to a soft warmth soon enough. “Thank you.” Steven echoes him, glad the mission could be accomplished with only minor bruising. Not bad, in the scheme of things.

_ ‘My feathers shall protect you from Darkrai’s ability if you keep one near you while you sleep. But you should not have had to endure anything at that pokemon’s hands in the first place. He should have been  _ **_locked in_ ** _ , after the last incident I forced him into even further isolation on that island. Worry not, I shall see to him.‘ _

Though Cresselia does sound genuinely concerned over Riley’s fate, the remainder of her thoughts strike him as distinctly not what he wanted to get from this. At the very least, they don’t sound right to him. So, he decides, he shall do something that may or may not be rather stupid. He can’t tell if it’s his idea, the idea of whatever part of Darkrai has ingrained itself in his aura, or just his own idiotic gut impulse that makes him voice a counteroffer. “I thank you for your anger at my defense, but will you allow me to deal with it? I believe I can do something that will keep other from similar problems.”

Steven turns toward Riley, not saying anything in order not to interrupt anything Cresselia might say and therefore come off as rude, but quite clearly giving Riley a ‘what are you doing?’ expression. Cresselia asks the same. ‘ _ How so, what authorizes you?’ _

“I’m no god as you are, but I am a guardian, as I said. I protect, I keep balance. Trust me, Cresselia.”

She has to think about it before she speaks. Riley responds to Steven’s continued subtle but bewildered gestures with a small nod. ‘ _ I shall face Darkrai on the full moon to ensure his compliance nonetheless. You may attempt, Guardian.’ _

Riley bows. “Thank you for your favour.” While Cresselia does not move aside from nodding back to him, Riley figures it’s a good enough note as any to leave on. He turns, taking a great amount of effort to walk off calmly as opposed to bolt. While Cresselia may have forgiven him, she’s still rather terrifying (as any pokemon with that powerful an aura and who threw him around at first sight would be). Steven hops to join along with him.

“That’s not what I figured was going to come of winging it,” he says.

“Yeah, I know, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Steven shrugs. “You’re the psychic one, I guess. You lead the way and I’m here for the ride.”

“I’m not psychic.”   
Steven deigns to reply to that, instead giving Riley a wide grin and a nudge to the side. “Look at us, though, the main problem’s solved. You got the wings and now you’ll be fine again, right?”

Riley laughs, finally coming to the idea that  yes , he has made it through. “God, I hope so.”

They return to the ship, happy with their accomplishment of procuring lunar wings. Captain Eldritch is pleased with them too, as the mission was accomplished and only one of these boys looks worse for wear coming back out of the island.

He’s pleased, that is, until Riley points to the other island a couple clicks away and says “We need to go there as well, actually. If you don’t mind.”

“Son,” Eldritch says, staring at the island as well, “are you out of your mind? That place is bad business. Can’t even get close without picking up on that feeling. Nosir, nothing good can come from you goin’ there. You were lucky with your feathers, it’s time for you to go home and call it a day.”

Riley argues that they’re going to go over there regardless, it’s merely a matter of using the boat or using a flying-type. He wins this argument largely with the idea that if the island does hold Darkrai (or ‘bad news’ as Eldritch calls it), the legendary’s aura could possibly risk pokemon brought out against it, which is not ideal when said pokemon are in midair. Eldritch concedes after agreeing that drowning is inadvisable, and finally agrees to ferry them over to Newmoon Island.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isn't it neat not having to wait 6 months between me posting things.

Newmoon is an exact opposite to Fullmoon Island in most aspects. Unlike Cresselia’s island, it doesn’t glow, but nonetheless gives a strong feeling of something’s presence, which sets Steven and Eldritch at ill ease until Riley has the presence of mind to give the each one of the four lunar wings he’d transferred to his pocket. That works to ease any foreboding feeling the island and its inhabitant give off, although the whole ‘going to visit a place occupied by a nightmare god prone to possessing people’ has its own psychological effect that no item can ward off.

The island has a dock, though a very questionable-looking one that appears to have been built quite a long time ago. Cresselia’s guarding crystals exist here too, oddly enough, though only dotting the furthest rocks along the edges of the island. Riley supposed that is one of the things she was referring to when she mentioned her security measures against Darkrai.

“This should be simple,” Steven comments blandly. Sarcasm noted and proven true, as even getting a stable enough point to dock and allow Steven and Riley off the ship is a trial for Eldritch. He manages, eventually, the darkness of the night not doing much to help him. Somehow Steven and Riley avoid old wood collapsing from under them when the walk along it onto the island, and then this time Riley’s confident in his actions dragging Steven by the arm through the wooded path. 

He walks more confidently here, because even though he’s acting entirely on impulse, Riley feels like he knows what he’s doing. This place is familiar as well, the same wooded place he’s occasionally visited in his dreams. Like Fullmoon and like in his dreams, there is a clearing in the woods that he approaches. He holds a hand out resolutely as Steven takes a couple wary steps back. Steven can feel Darkrai’s presence, though unlike Riley he is neither determined to interact with it nor accustomed to it. Riley can’t walk through the gap in the trees, which is more or less exactly what he expected. He lays a hand on the air and meets resistance, a psychic wall no doubt installed by either Cresselia or the entities that exiled Darkrai here in the first place. As if called forth by his motion, shadows on the ground shift and bubble. From them, behind the aura wall, Darkrai rises slowly from the ground.

Riley stares at it evenly. It’s the first time he’s seen this pokemon as a pokemon and not some odd shadow of himself, though its form has a hazy familiarity. Darkrai does and says nothing for quite a while, just staring at Riley with an icy blue eye.

Riley stares back.

_ ‘So you came _ .’

“I did. I have an offer.”

_ ‘I can do nothing for you, child, I am sorry _ .’

“I don’t need you to. But  _ I _ can do something for  _ you _ , I think.”

Darkrai regards him curiously. This is new, and not at all what it expected. Darkrai’s history is one of being increasingly contained on Newmoon Island in an attempt to keep its ability as away from humans as possible. A human coming to its island and doing so peacefully, much less a human it inadvertently cursed, is never something Darkrai would have thought possible. Riley calls forth his aura powers, concentrating the energy in his palm. With a cerulean glow, his hand pushes through the barrier to Darkrai’s clearing and pulls open a gash in it. 

His plan was to free Darkrai and he’s still not sure if he’s going to regret this or not. But he doubts it. Riley can’t help but pity the pokemon, especially after being forced to share its overwhelming loneliness in his own nightmares. He regards Darkrai carefully. The pokemon seems distinctly surprised but does not move.

_ ‘What are you doing?’ _

Riley inhales. Alright, he’s here, do it. “I can let you leave here. You found me because you were looking for a way out, weren’t you? I have lunar wings. You can stay with me, visit Iron Island during the day, or full moon, whatever. When it’s night and people sleep, you head back. But this,” he gestures at the island around him the anchors Darkrai to its location, “This clearly isn’t working.” And it’s cruel. That’s the main part. Arceus knows how long the pokemon’s been stuck alone here. Riley would want to leave too.

Darkrai doesn’t respond, clearly surprised and expecting some sort of takeback from Riley. “Well?” the human asks. “I’m not saying I’m becoming your trainer, but I have a spare Pokeball on me. You  get linked to me as much as I am to you and we can take down some of the barriers here. It won’t give you much aside from Iron Island and the rules I said, but it’s an idea.”

_‘Child, you offer too much. I would like to, but you will incur Cresselia’s wrath._ _She doesn’t trust me, why do you?’_

“She didn’t have you living in her brain for an age. Besides, she already threw me around once and I lived, what the worst that could happen.” That’s pretty blase of him and he knows it, but this is a marketing pitch here.  It seems to work, about which Riley is not surprised. Darkrai nods.

__ ‘I do my best not to harm those around me, and I will not go back on that _ ,’  _ it tells Riley.

"Good," the aura guardian replies, drawing a pokeball out from a clip on his belt. "Because if you did, you'd be stuck back on this island in a heartbeat." Riley holds out the pokeball to Darkrai briefly before tossing it upwards. He doesn't expect much, to be honest. But the pokemon complies easily with the red light that engulfs it. The ball falls to the ground, twitches a few times, and makes the successful-capture ping noise. Not a full second after it does that, Darkrai pops back out. The pokeball isn’t broken, just finds it difficult to contain Darkrai. Nor does Darkrai particularly enjoy the confinement. Riley scoops the ball up and clips the now-claimed pokeball back on his belt.

"Done," he announces. "You're connected to this now, and it'll be kept in the Iron Island cabin. You're free to visit like anyone else would be, I won't hold a grudge." Riley smiles.

Darkrai looks at itself, then at the pokeball in Riley's hands. It genuinely doubts this would work, but an attempt is worth it and it's more the gesture that Darkrai appreciates more than anything else. A human has forgiven it. A human has faith. For the first time in decades.

_ ‘Thank you’ _ , Darkrai tells Riley.

"Do see if you can visit me in the morning. I hope that's enough to keep your aura from wandering." As with Cresselia, Riley bows to the pokemon before leaving.

He turns to Steven, who is even more dumbfounded than before, though this time with significantly more awe in his expression. He walks quickly to catch up with Riley’s brisk pace out of the island as Darkrai considers its options in the copse. "You just caught a god," Steven whispers at Riley, "in a  _ pokeball _ . Are you  _ insane _ ?"

Riley grins, self-satisfied. "Quite possibly. We'll have to see.” He pauses to think for a second before bursting out with a laugh and pulling Steven into a haphazard hug. “We did it, though. Either way, I’m alive and we did it.” He plants an enthused kiss on Steven’s temple. “Thank you for staying with me.”

Steven grins back and elbows Riley companionably in the side. “Any time.”

They emerge from the island and return to the ship in great spirits, because now, no matter what becomes of them and of the lunar gods, it is technically  _ over _ . They did it.

Dawn greets them back at Canalave harbour with a small smile and a whispered congratulations.

* * *

Riley returns with Steven to Hoenn, figuring that he may as well take a couple days to visit the region properly, and stay with Steven a bit longer with the added bonus of having his presence of mind entirely about him. The lunar wing works as advertised; so long as he keeps one in the room while he sleeps Riley is entirely fine. As is Steven, there are no further subconscious incidents.

A week after Riley returns to Iron Island, he notices for the first time a dark aura hovering about him as he hikes down from one of the island’s outcroppings. He looks down at his shadow.

“You’re free to come out,” he says, “I’m glad you made it. I don’t know if you eat poffins, but I’ve got some at the cabin if you choose to tag along.”

Darkrai billows out from the shadows, blinking adjustment to the midday sun, and follows quietly along after Riley.


End file.
